The Final Stand
by mindsinger123
Summary: The sequel to my story "Seek and Ye Shall Find." Scully and Mulder are living with thier son William in Roswell, preparing for the inevitable alien invasion. But years ago, the aliens tried to stop William's birth. Was there a reason William Mulder was so important, and how can a ten year old boy save the entire human race?
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Greetings again all! I am so very happy that so many enjoyed my first XF fanfiction, "Seek and ye Shall Find." I wrote it over ten years ago, and it's refreshing to see it still rings with the fans. This story is the sequel I wrote to it, so if you haven't read it yet, please do. It's not essential that you have read "Seek" first, but it will certainly help. Again, this one was written over ten years ago, and i think my writing style has evolved a bit since then, so apologies for it being rough around the edges. Enjoy!**

Seek and Ye Shall Find avalable here: s/9055803/1/Seek-and-Ye-Shall-Find

**The Final Stand Chapter 1**

The desert sun was unmerciful as it baked the desert below. Ten year

old William Mulder (II) wiped the sweat from his forehead as he

continued down the sidewalk of his neighborhood in Roswell, New

Mexico. He had lived here for three years now with his parents, Dana

Scully and Fox Mulder, and although he had been raised on a small

midwestern farm in an even smaller midwestern town up until the age of

seven, he regarded the desert city and the sprawling neighborhood as

his home.

William had been given up for adoption by his parents when he was nine

months old, due the the fact that they were both being hunted by

unknown forces and couldn't protect him. In the nine months between

his birth and adoption, he had been attacked twice and kidnapped once,

and it looked like there would be no end to it in the future. With his

father in hiding and his mother at a loss, she had made the heart

wrenching decision to send him away, and he had gone to

live with Bob and Nancy Van de Kamp on a small farm in small town in

the middle of nowhere.

For seven years he had believed them to be his natural parents, even

though he had never called them Mom or Dad and looked nothing like

them. After discovering his adoption, he soon found himself in a chain

of events which led him to discover his real parents and thier

friends, John Doggett and Monica Reyes. However, his search had also

led to the murders of Bob and Nancy and a frantic flight from Midville

with Doggett and Reyes to Washington D.C. There, he had met his

grandmother Maggie Scully and had finally been reunited with his

birth parents. They had brought him to Roswell, a safe haven from

those who were looking for them, and he had lived here ever since.

A small dust devil went dancing across his path as a breeze kicked up

the sand and dirt, but offered little relief from the heat. William

was amazed to find how he had adjusted to living in the desert after a

lifetime of living in the midwest. It never snowed here, although it

did in the mountains nearby, and it was very dry. But the culture

fascinated him. He had been out to visit some friends at the local

Native American reservations several times, and he had an

extensive collection of Zuni animal carvings. Soon he would be leaving

to go on a three day long vision quest at a nearby reservation and he

was excited about it, not to mention honored to be allowed to

participate.

In all outward appearances, William looked like a regular kid, if a

bit tall for ten years old. He had his mother's red hair and blue

eyes, but his father's facial features and photographic memory. But

what couldn't be seen were William's other features. He could almost

hear people's thoughts, could sense others around him, could, on some

occasions, move objects with his mind, and sometimes could even see

events happening in other places. He was exceptionally brilliant,

testing with an IQ of 180. His adoptive parents had suspected, but

had never really known just how different he really was.

His parents knew, though. They had never really explained everything

entirely to him, but he got the impression that several events

concerning his parents before his birth had contributed to his

strangeness. But they loved him, he never doubted that. And his father

had promised to explain everything to him soon.

He was almost home. It had been a long day at school and he was

anxious to get home. He began to skip and whistle, walking past the

new houses of the neighborhood. They were small, but nice homes with

very little yard space. Instead of trees, mostly shrubbery and a small

cactus here and there made up the flower beds. Suddenly he felt a

prickle on the back of his neck as the hairs rose. Although he could

see or hear nothing, he froze and looked around. Suddenly a white van

came whipping around the corner behind him. It screeched

to a stop beside him and the door opened. Two masked men jumped out,

but William was already running.

He ran between the two nearest houses as the two men chased after him

and the van sped off down the street. He ducked under a hedge row and

into the next yard. He didn't look back but he knew the two men hadn't

slowed down. He felt rather than saw them split up and he was prepared

as he rounded the corner of another house. Sure enough, there was one

of the masked men waiting for him, but William was ready for him.

Using his forward momentum, he ran up and planted a swift jump side

kick into the man's chest, barreling him over to the ground.

William rolled over, jumped to his feet and kept running. He rounded

the hedges onto the sidewalk but the second man was waiting and the

van pulled to a stop beside them. He grabbed William and wrestled him

to the waiting van as the boy wriggled furiously trying to escape.

Reaching down to his belt, he pulled free the special weapon given to

him by his parents' friend, John Doggett. It looked like a small

cellular phone, which in fact it was, but in true James Bond

fashion, it also housed several small weapons, one of which was a stun

gun device. He activated it with a button, pressed it to the man's arm

and pushed the fire button.

The man instantly dropped him and fell to the ground. William scooted

away up the driveway of the nearest house and ducked into hiding

behind the air conditioning unit and a wheelbarrow. He stayed there,

panting hard, trying to regulate his breathing so he wouldn't be found

out. He heard the first man and the van's driver looking through the

bushes for him. He waited silently, barely breathing, with the phone

gun still in his hand, ready to go. He waited for a half hour, but it

seemed like an eternity. Was it safe to come out? He had

heard the van drive away but it was probably a ploy. His mother would

be wondering where he was, but he wasn't going to come out until he

knew it was over.

Then, he heard a voice calling to him.

"OK, Wil, I quit. Come out now, you win!" One of the masked men, the

one William had knocked over with a kick, had come into the backyard

where he was hiding. He took off his mask, revealing the sweaty but

grinning face of William's father, Fox Mulder.

With a grin, William stood up and Mulder laughed. He came over and

ruffled his son's hair.

"Not bad, kid, not bad at all. Although next time I'd refrain from

actually stunning someone during a practice run, poor Gibson's still

seeing stars."

William flinched a little. He hadn't meant to actually stun anyone,

but you never knew. He followed his father to the van where the

driver, Doug Eagleman and the second attacker, 24 year old Gibson

Praise, were waiting. Gibson was looking green and his friend, Doug

was fanning him.

'Nice move squirt...' William heard inside his head. Gibson was

telepathic and William was one of few people who could actually hear

and respond to him.

He smiled sheepishly and thought back, 'Sorry, man. I didn't mean

to.'

Gibson sighed and smiled. He shook his head and said, "Do you want us

to drop you off?"

Mulder shook his head, "No, thanks guys. It's only two blocks, we can

walk it. And I know you two wanted to go down to the reservation

tonight, so go on ahead."

As Doug and Gibson waved goodbye, Mulder and William started walking

back towards their house on the edge of the neighborhood.

William looked over his and his father's clothes and shook his head.

"Mom's gonna be mad."

Mulder smiled softly. "She doesn't like the way we're training you,

but she of all people knows how important it is. We don't have time to

play around, it's already 2012. This December is it, and I know you've

been training ever since we've had you, but we still don't know fr

sure what to expect."

William felt a small shiver as his father mentioned the impending

date. December 22, 2012, the date on the Mayan calendar that signaled

the destruction of the universe, the date the aliens would come to

invade the Earth. When William had first heard the story, he wondered

if his parents and the others who had settled in this neighborhood

weren't a little off their rockers. But as he had been told more and

more, he came to realize that nobody was playing games. The entire

town of Roswell, New Mexico was built on a large deposit of

magnetite. The aliens themselves were affected in such a way that,

while it wasn't fatal, staying in the area caused an illness in them

similar to radiation sickness in humans. But there were other beings

as well, human-alien hybrids known as "Super Soldiers" that could not

be killed in any way, not by bullets or even being crushed into

hamburger. The only thing that WOULD kill them was magnetite. It

pulled them apart and reduced them to a pile of powdered

metal. Using this information, several scientists who had moved to

Roswell in a growing community of secret specialists, had developed a

type of dart gun that fired darts of concentrated magnetite. One of

the weapons on William's cellular phone, besides a stun gun, was a

magnetite dart. However, it was only a single shot.

The people of this task force had been working for a decade to develop

weapons against the coming invaders, the dart guns being group

included not just the residents of thier neighborhood in Roswell, but

a network of carefully placed people around the world. After arriving

and setting up a haven in Roswell, safe from the supersoldiers who

could not come near the magnetite thier homes were built on, former

FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully along with several others who

also knew of the impending invasion, had begun to work on a plan to

stop the planned invasion. All over the world, individuals who

were part of their group worked in secret alongside thier regular jobs

to do thier part, developing weapons, vaccines and battle plans to

fight an unknown superior force from another world. Dana Scully had

been working as well, using her degree in medicine and a teaching

position at the local university to develop and reverse engineer the

vaccine Mulder had used on her in Antarctica. It was the only known

defense against the virus that turned human beings into

biological incubators for new alien life forms. It had been Mulder who

had named the group Aegis, after the mythological Zeus' sheild. But it

had been suggested by a group of local teenagers who played a

roleplaying game called Conspiracy X, and Mulder had found it funny

how the kids never knew how close thier game came to the truth.

In the meantime, Mulder and Scully had been trying to raise their son

in the best way they could. They wanted him to have as normal a life

as possible, and to never be afraid, but they didn't want him to be

clueless. They made sure he trained in martial arts and learned all

that he could about how to defend himself. They told him as much as

they could about their operation and the plan going on to stop the

invasion. But aside from all of that, they still had a

little boy who had lost people he had considered parents in a terrible

way. Like his father, he was very good at blaming himself for things

that were ultimately beyond his control, and both of them had talked

to him at length, even talked to some counselors to make sure he was

handling everything alright.

William looked up at his dad. "Dad, am I going to be able to go with

you and Mom this summer?"

"Sure, you do every year. Don't you want to see your friend Josh

again?" asked Mulder.

Since coming to live with his birth parents, William had stayed in

contact via email with his friend from Midville, Joshua. Every summer

since then, they had made trips to visit Josh and his family, the Van

de Kamp's graves, then on to Washington D.C. to visit the Scully

family. William loved his grandmother and Uncle Charlie, but Uncle

Bill was always a little short with him. And he knew that Uncle Bill

detested his dad. They also made a point of visiting Mr.

Skinner, and Agents Doggett and Reyes, as well as Jimmy and Yves, two

remaining members of a group who called themselves the Lone Gunmen.

The other three of that group, Byers, Langley and Frohike, had been

friends of his parents for years and had died "in the line of duty" as

his mother had said. They visited thier graves in Arlington Cemetary

every summer too, while Mulder would tell William all the crazy

stories the three guys had gotten into.

"Well," said William, "This is it, this is the year."

"That's right," replied Mulder, "And if there was ever a time to see

everybody, this is it. Plus you have a birthday coming up in a few

weeks, right? Mom says we can have any kind of party you want, a real

big one for all your friends. She says you already picked one out?"

William nodded. He heard what his father didn't say. That this might

be the last year they were all alive, so live it up now. He and his

mother had planned to rent out the local Skate Galaxy and have the

blacklight lit skating rink/maze/laser tag facility all to themselves.

William had planned on inviting his entire Little League team and

everyone from karate. He didn't have many friends from school since he

was in the eigth grade and most of his classmates were four years

older than him with entirely different interests. He wished

Josh could come though.

They walked into thier house and paused in the kitchen. Dana Scully

was on the phone, apparently chewing someone out.

"No Richard! You SAID you would have those MagGun proposals sent to

the Pentagon by this past Monday, it's Friday." she said in

exhasperation. She paused and listened, then continued irritated. "OK

then, fine. When Al comes to invade us all, maybe we'll just send up a

radio transmission asking, 'Sorry boys, our Mags aren't going to be

ready for another two weeks, could you come back then?' Think that'll

work?"

Mulder snorted back a laugh and she turned around, and her mouth

dropped at the sight of her son and his father covered in desert sand

tracking into her kitchen. Suddenly her attention shifted back to the

phone. "OK, OK, fine then. Just do it fast, will you?" She hung up

then turned her stern gaze on the two men in her life. They both

grinned identical sheepish grins. She knew it wouldn't do to laugh

right now, she didn't wwant either of them to think she

approved of what she knew they had been doing, but it WAS a funny

sight.

Mulder said almost apologetically, "Umm, Dana, we're um, just going to

go, er clean up, OK?" He hurried out of the kitchen and William

scooted after him after blowing a kiss to his mother. Once they were

out of sight she allowed herself to smile. She knew it was important

for William to be on alert and be trained, she just wished it didn't

have to be so rough. She wished he were still a baby, but in other

ways she was glad he wasn't. While other mothers were worried about

kidnappers, pedophiles and speeding cars, she worried about

super soldiers, UFO's and government agents coming after her kid.

While sitting around the dinner table that night, Scully clued Mulder

in on the latest developments on the homefront. They had worked in

secret until the past year when finally bringing in the military and

the President, with a little help from thier friends still in the FBI

and Congress. It hadn't been easy, especially since you never knew who

to trust, and who could be an alien in disguise. They had relied on

Gibson Praise as a sort of human lie detector to tell if anyone in the

room was an alien or not human in any other way. William

had been learning to do it himself, although his abilities were

different from Gibson's. William had been injected with a form of

magnetite as an infant by his half-uncle Jeffery Spender, who lived

next door with Gibson. He had never been told why, although his

parents didn't seem to mind Uncle Jeff being around, but he sensed his

mother had a bit of animosity towards his uncle. But they needed every

man they could get, even one who had been as weakened and

disfigured as Jeff Spender had been by the experimentation done on him

by the government.

Scully told them that thier contact at the weapons processing factory

had been late on delivering the magnetite gun proposal to the generals

in thier group at the Pentagon. On top of all that, there were some

holdups at the CDC in getting the vaccine out. England had already

begun innoculating thier citizens and most other countries had plans

in place, thanks to the group members already working in those

countries.

"Relax, Scully," said Mulder, "It'll all get going in the next two

weeks like planned. When announcing the need for millions of Americans

to be vaccinated with a new vaccine against an unknown disease, it has

to be done carefully to prevent panic. Besides, no one's going to know

what the truth is, they're coming up with some story about Anthrax or

something."

Scully nodded, "The Aegis group wants to know about the meeting,

people have been calling nonstop."

Mulder sighed. Although he had not asked for the position, he was

considered one of the group leaders, since he had founded the

beginnings of the network during his time in hiding in New Mexico when

William was a baby. He had been reluctant to take on the role though,

since he had a mental image of his father and the men he had worked

with in a similar situation, running the Syndicate in the shadows of

an alien invasion.

"We'll shoot for July 4th, everyone will be off from work and we can

make it into a sort of neighborhood barbecue or something, we'll avoid

suspicion that way. And it'll give everyone time to get down here." He

picked at his salad slowly.

Scully turned to William. "What about you? Still on for your birthday

party?" she asked with a grin.

He smiled back. "Sure am, and the vision quest too. Who knows, maybe

the spirits will send some huge sign of how we're supposed to win the

invasion." His parents both smiled somewhat sadly.

Later that night, William tossed and turned in his bed. Sleep was

coming more and more difficultly as the months faded away to the

inevitable. He didn't let his parents know he was sleeping badly,

since he didn't want them to worry even more about him, but lately

he'd lie down around 9:30 and stare at the ceiling until 1AM. And when

he DID sleep, his dreams were filled with images of Bob and

Nancy lying dead in different places on the farm, of his family being

frozen in alien pods, of UFO's zooming through the sky spitting fire

like in War of the Worlds. It was getting to the point to where he was

starting to see flashes of daydreams during the day. Once he thought

he saw a UFO overhead, although UFO's couldn't fly over Roswell

without crashing due to the magnetite. Another time he thought he saw

a gray alien in the bushes. He hoped he wasn't losing it so

soon to the time when he might be needed.

Sighing, he got up out of bed and went down the hall towards the

kitchen for some water. He didn't turn on any lights, since both of

his parents were light sleepers. But as he came into the den, he saw

that his father was still up anyway watching television. Fox Mulder

had been an insomniac for years. Mulder looked up and saw his son

standing in the doorway. He grinned and patted the sofa next to him.

William went over and crawled up beside his dad. Mulder

pulled a blanket over both of them and settled back down.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

William shook his head. Mulder pressed on, "You're worried about

something? You don't have to do the vision quest, you know. Or is it

something else?"

William thought for a minute, then asked, "Dad, are we going to win?"

He had never asked this question right out, knowing his parents were

working as hard as they could to ensure the war would be won, but what

did they really think?

Mulder, for one, didn't quite know how to answer. " I really don't

know son," he said with caution, then decided to continue, "but if you

want absolute honesty, well, the chances aren't good."

"Then we're all going to die anway?" asked William. Mulder smiled.

"Probably not. There are 8 billion people on the planet, even with

the gestating virus, there will always be pockets of people who will

be isolated and will escape it. Plus we have the vaccine and we've

been innoculating people for years, so quite a few will be immune to

it. To the best of our knowledge, Al doesn't know about the vaccine

yet, and thanks to the friends we made at the CDC, the vaccine has

been mass-produced for three years now and shipped out with regular

vaccines given to babies when they're born. As for the older ones,

doctors who are part of Aegis have released announcements saying

previous booster shots were found to be ineffective, to come in and

get the "new improved" one, doctors are giving them during anual

checkups, and all of us here in Roswell and the whole family have had

them. So we're betting the virus thing won't work as well as they'd

hoped.

Now don't get me wrong, it'll still get alot of people if it's

released. We just can't vaccinate everyone, there's no time. But we

estimated about half the world's population has it by now, and some of

our Aegis crew have been burning those cornfields mom and me showed

you two years ago in Texas and all over the world. Some of our more,

um, enthusiatic crew even blew up some of those huge bee hives with

home made napalm. Managed to get the attention of the local

news."

Mulder paused and sighed. William thought for a minute, then asked, "I

read about all the terrorist stuff at the turn of the century, and

listen to what you and Mom tell me about the Syndicate an Aegis. What

makes us different from those guys? I mean, we operate in small goups

loosely connected to each other, we have ties in the government. We're

going to end up fighting a huge..."

"DON'T compare us to them, William," Mulder said sternly, "Aegis is

NOT like any of those organizations. The Syndicate was only trying to

buy time to save thier own asses while keeping thier unlimited power

over the masses, and the terrorists, well, they didn't care who got

killed, civillians, kids. We're trying to ensure our species will

survive whatever's coming. We're trying to save lives here. Yes we

operate in some of the same ways, groups loosely connected through our

network, all trying for the same goal, but we're not trying to kill

anyone or control anyone, we're trying to keep the planet for

ourselves, which, frankly I think we have a right to. I mean,

apparently they WERE here before us, from what I was told. But they

didn't oringate here, they came to colonize it but it was too cold. So

they left or lay dormant in ice. But when they came back, suddenly

here we were and they don't feel like sharing. Neither do I actually.

Who are they to come and commit genocide? What right do they have to

the planet? None at all. It's ours.

And you know, I'm not about being heartless. If some catastrophe

destroyed thier world and they needed somewhere to live, and above

all, were more gracious about sharing the planet, I could see letting

them colonize in a few places. If they were at all willing to coexist

and respect our right to live, I wouldn't have a problem with sharing

the planet. But thier constant lies and backstabbing to the Syndicate,

the virus, all of it shows they don't really want to work with us at

all, they just want us to help them kill ourselves."

William snuggled closer to his father and listened. His parents had

told him of past events they had dealt with while working ont he

X-Files, and it was alot to remember. But he had never heard his

father's true feelings about the matter. William knew both of his

parents had suffered terribly to fight the lies and horror they had

found within the cases of the X-Files. Within a space of five years,

his mother's father and both of his father's parents had died or

been murdered. His aunt Melissa had been shot and killed, mistaken for

her sister. His aunt Samantha, for whom his father had searched for 25

years was found to have been eventually killed after years of

experimentation by the Syndicate. His half sister Emily had been

created as a human answer to the super soldiers, without his mother's

knowledge, and she had eventually died from her abnormal blood

condition. The three orignial Lone Gunmen had been killed preventing a

deadly virus escaping, his half uncle Jeff Spender had been

shot by his own father, the Cigarette Smoking Man (William's genetic

grandfather), and when he didn't die, he was left to be experimented

on, leaving him horribly burned and disfigured. Gibson had been forced

into hiding at the age of twelve because of his mental abilites, after

his parents had been found dead.

Both Mulder and Scully had been abducted for several months, only to

be returned nearly dead. His mother had battled a brutal cancer. And

his own birth, which should have been a joyous miracle, was

overshadowed by the supersoldiers hunting for him, for Mulder's forced

flight underground, attacks and kidnappings which eventually led to

William's adoption to Bob and Nancy Van de Kamp. All these families,

all these lives, destroyed, all because of greedy evil men and

unfeeling creatures from God knows where who couldn't stay off

someone else's planet. The whole thing sucked. And for what? To fight

a losing battle?

"Dad?" William asked slowly. "What if we fail?"

Mulder pulled his son close. "Well, at least we will have tried."


	2. Chapter 2

**The Final Stand Chapter 2**

Dana Scully was having a rare happy day. For today at least, they were

going to forget about the whole mess of alien invasion and Aegis and

whatever. It was William's 11th birthday and since she and Mulder had

missed the first seven years and birthdays of thier son's life, they

were going to make up for it. They had taken over the local Skate

Galaxy so the kids could have unlimted access to the skating rink, the

maze, obstical course, and William's favorite, Laser Tag. He had

already played it three times. And Mulder was thoroughly

enjoying his role as Dad-big kid. Scully had had to fish him out of

the balls pit twice to come help with the cake and ice cream. He had

been through the laser tag twice with William already, reminding Dana

of the time they were caught in the video game at FPS years ago.

After singing happy Birthday, opening presents and plenty of cake and

ice cream, William coaxed his mother into joining them in the skating

rink. She hadn't been on skates in 30 years and felt like a turtle on

wheels, but Mulder came up and, with a wink, took her hand and hauled

her around twice before she laughed and headed for the side. William

was having one of the best brithdays of his life. Earlier that day,

Agents Doggett and Reyes had shown up as a surprise. They were on

thier way back from a case in California and had decided

to swing by New Mexico for William's birthday. (and some cake no

doubt) They had given him a new Virtual Reality Game System game, the

newest one out by Nintendo. Monica had been helping his mother herd

the kids, and Doggett had been switching between the video games and

talking to Mulder.

After several exciting hours, William convinced both of his parents,

the two agents and the rest of his friends from karate and Little

League to go for one final Lasr Tag game. Everyone agreed and they

headed in. William always felt like an android or something wearing

the cyber vest with light sensors and running around with the light

gun. The object of the game was for the two teams to blast the other

team's four light stations, hidden in rooms and pockets in

the maze. William half wondered if he wouldn't be doing something

similar but for real in the near future.

As the buzzer sounded, the two groups headed into the blacklight

illuminated maze. William watched with awe as his mother expertly

ducked behind a corner. His parents were on his team but Doggett and

Reyes were on the other one to make it more fair. William climbed up

the ramp leading to the upper level and grinned as he watched his

father and Doggett below in a laser shootout. Both men never noticed

William's karate friend, Kyle come up and shoot them both,

even though Mulder was on his team. Both men laughed. William set off

to find the light stations. As he ran into a light station, he blasted

the sensor in the roof and it set off the strobe light indicating he

had destroyed the station. But as the stobing light flashed in his

eyes, suddenly his mind leapt, and he saw an image of a triangular

craft in the sky, strobing lights shining down on him. But as quickly

as it had come, the vision vanished. William stood for a second,

wonering what had happened. Then he shook his head hard and set

off to find another station.

A he rounded several more corners and fought off other team members,

he felt a funny sensation creep into his head. He turned quickly and

stiffled a scream. Right behind him was a gray alien!

'No, no it can't be. It's not real, it's a hallucination...too much

cake, too much sugar, that has to be it!' he thought. He raised his

gun, forgetting it was only a laser gun that shot harmless light. Then

he remembered and felt his belt for his phone gun. It wasn't there. He

remembered, he hadn't brought it. He backed away and blinked hard.

Suddenly the alien was gone. He looked around rapidly. People were

running everywhere, still playing. Derek Sanchez shot him

twice but William never noticed. Derek asked if he was OK, but William

didn't hear. He ran away blindly through the maze, as if trying to

outrun an invisable pursuer. He ran around a corner and saw his

mother. She looked up and froze. Dana registered the look of pure

panic on her son's face and sprinted over to him.

"Wil, what's wrong? What happened?" she asked as she pulled him into a

hug. Safe now in his mother's arms, he burst into tears, not caring if

any of his friends saw him. Alarmed now, Scully asked again what

happened.

"Al...I saw, I thought I saw...Al," he said between sobs, using the

Aegis codeword for alien.

A look of fear came into Dana's eyes as well as resolve. She looked up

and made a move as if to go somewhere, but just then the lights came

back on and the sounds of the other team cheering filled the room.

They had one by one light station. William didn't care, but he dried

up his tears right away, lest anyone thought he was crying because his

team lost. Mulder and Reyes came sprinting over with smiles, but

stopped when they saw William.

"What's going on?" Mulder asked as Doggett joined them.

Scully pulled them closer and whispered, "He thought he saw a grey,

back in there somewhere." William nodded confirming.

"OK, get everyone out of here, " said Doggett. He, Reyes and Mulder

turned and went back into the maze. Scully took William's hand and led

him out with the other kids. It was the final game and everyone

started packing up to leave for home. William dutifully said goodbye

to his friends, forced smiles and laughter, and finally, when the last

one had left, went to his mother who held him protectivly close. His

father came out followed by the agents, saying they had not been able

to find anything at all. William insisted he had seen a grey,

but no one knew what to think. They gathered up everything and headed

for home, and the drive back was somber.

Once they got home, the four adults listened again to William's

recount of seeing an alien in the laser tag arena. But no trace had

been found. Plus there didn't seem to have been anyone else who had

seen it.

"I thought they couldn't come into Roswell in the first place because

of the magnetite," said Monica Reyes.

"No they can, they just can't fly over it," Mulder countered. "The

supersoldiers can't come in the town, they'd be pulled apart, but

aliens and humans can. Usually a bullet will take care of an alien

though."

Scully pulled William closer to her and he could feel his mother's

uneasiness and wished he hadn't said anything in the first place. He

was beginning to doubt his sanity and wondered if he should mention

having seen flashes before of aliens on the street.

"Well, aside from all this, we have other problems," said John

Doggett somberly. "Seems our friends in what's left of the Syndicate

know for sure about us now. Jim and Yves sent us an intercepted

downloaded letter detailing certain operations, and you and Dana, so

they know for sure you're alive now. Good thing you were officially

pardoned from that Knowle Rohrer thing, Mulder, or the military'd be

knocking on your door right now."

"Also, if you're ready for more good news," sighed Monica, "Seems the

aliens know about Aegis too. We don't know if they know about the

vaccine, but they do know there's a reisistance movement organizing.

We think they don't know about you guys or that it's centered here in

Roswell, but they might soon enough. They might step up the

timetable."

"You said the aliens know, do you mean the grays?" asked Mulder.

"Well yeah, who else?" asked John.

"Well," said Mulder, "We know there are actually several different

races, but we aren't sure if they're all connected to the greys, or if

they're at war. We heard something earlier about a war, but it wasn't

confirmed."

"You mean like Jeremiah Smith?" William asked. He had met the

shapeshifting healer alien two years ago, and he had looked perfectly

human to William, although Gibson had pointed out the different

feeling of the man versus a normal human.

"Yes, but we're not sure if the Jeremiah and Gregor race are a race

unto themselves or creation of the greys who are rebelling." said

Dana. "We know the Jeremiahs kow about us, they're part of the Aegis

group. Half of what we've been able to do is with their help."

"This just keeps getting better and better..." John sighed.

Doggett and Reyes stayed for dinner, then a little while afterwards

talking to Mulder and Scully. They left for Washington D.C. after

wishing William a happy birthday again. They'd be seeing each other

again in a few weeks.(William hoped)

As his mom tucked him in, she mentioned that they were thinking of

cancelling William's vision quest at the reservation.

"No! Mom please! I might not get another chance and I was glad to be

asked. Don't make me back out." he pleaded.

"I just don't think it's safe, William. Out there in the open, no

defenses, plus I'm not sure I like it anyway. No food for three days?

That can be dangerous for an eleven year old kid."

"You decide to bring this up now?" he pouted, "Why not just say no a

month ago? And Dad said it was OK"

"Watch yourself, Mister..." she warned somewhat jokingly but sternly.

She sighed. She knew he wanted badly to go, but if he was seeing

aliens... And she knew Eric Hosteen, the grandson of Albert Hosteen,

would be there watching him. The person on the vision quest was rarely

left entirely alone these days. There was usually someone nearby in

case of emergency, and the Hosteen family had been a tremendous help

to herself and Mulder through the years. Without Albert's help, before

his death years ago, Mulder would be dead today. Eric had

even chosen to be beaten badly by the Cigarette Smoking Man rather

than give up Mulder's location at the time.

"Let me think about it some more, OK? And I'm coming along if you DO

go." she said.

"Mom, it's supposed to be me alone in great Mother Nature. It won't

work if you're there." he said.

"I'm not leaving you by yourself, even with Eric there. And I'll stay

out of sight, but I want to be there. No discussion. Either I go or

you don't." she said firmly.

William nodded, knowing that since she had made up her mind, either go

along with her or don't go at all. She kissed him good night and gave

him a big hug.

"Thanks for the party, Mom. It was great," he said.

She smiled and pulled him closer, "I'm glad, sweetie. G'night."

She tucked him in, then left turning off the light. William lay back,

steeling himself for another few hours of staring at the ceiling.

The sound of his parents' voices came drifting in. He heard his name

being mentioned and slowly got up and crept to the hallway to listen.

His mother was talking.

"You know, Mulder, if ten years ago someone had told me about what I'd

be doing these days, I would have laughed. And that's AFTER having

been on the X-Files for several years. Who would have thought that

we'd be on the front lines fighting off an alien invasion while trying

to raise a kid?" She sounded almost downbeat.

"I know, Dana, but what else can we do, roll over and let them kill us

all? Why make it easy? Besides, my gut is telling me there IS a way to

win, I really think it can be done. I just wish the world didn't have

to be disrupted to do it." said Mulder.

"You know, when I look at the news and see all the reports of

diferent countries at war, people killing each other over land less

than the size of Maryland, corruption in corporations, it just makes

me want to yell at all of them, 'Hey don't you know you only have

seven months left to live? There's a huge, superior race of beings who

want this planet and they could give a damn about your religion, your

money, whatever. They only want the planet and us off of it. Stop

fighting each other and help us fight THEM!' It's all so stupid and

pointless, fighting each other when we'll need every person we can

get." she paused for a minute.

Mulder knew something was on her mind, so he waited. Finally she said,

"Mulder, what about what happened today? What's going on with

William?"

"What ISN'T going on with him?" he said. "Dana, regardless of what he

appears to be, he isn't your average child, you know that. I don't

think he saw a real grey, but maybe a premonition or vision of one.

With his mental abilities, and we don't even know the extent of them,

it could have been anything. Remember what everyone said about him

when he was born? Even those kooks up in Canada, the cult. William was

destined to turn the tide of the invasion, that whoever's

side he was on would win. That's why the supersoldiers wanted me dead,

probably you too. If we raised him, as we have mostly, he'd side with

us. If they raised him, he'd side with them. I wish I knew what his

part is in all of this, if only to protect him. Whatever he is in the

big picture, he's our little boy and I love him."

Dana said, "I can't believe he's so important to this somehow. I mean,

the Syndicate has been working with Al on colonization for over fify

years. You and I weren't born then, and yet now everything depends on

a child niether one of us even expected to have. I just don't see how

that came about so suddenly, or how all the plans they made centered

on one little boy no one could garuntee would even be born."

"I don't think it did, actually," said Mulder. "Things changed after

our little fiasco in Antarctica. With the destruction of the

Syndicate and the ship taking off, that turned the tide. Before, the

aliens were going to "colonize", told the Syndicate they would simply

turn humans into a slave race using the black oil. In exchange for

making the preparations for them, the aliens would grant the Syndicate

and thier families amnesty. But lo and behold, the virus

actually turns people into human incubators for the aliens, which

would kill us all and repopulate the Earth with greys. With the

Syndicate dead and the project dying, all bets were off. Now we know

for sure they don't plan on coexisting, they're coming to kill.

Before, the bounty hunter aliens were sent to police the project.

These days, the job seems to be to clean up. They figured out the

Syndicate was working against them, hopefully not about the

vaccine, but the Jeremiahs, Gregors, and...Samanthas...were the

Syndicate's attempts to creat a human/alien hybrid who would survive

the plague.

Aparently that didn't go over well with the greys, they sent the

bounty hunter to get rid of them. And Emily.."Mulder paused, not sure

if he should continue, but did, "I think she was an attempt to make

our own super soldier. With that experiment a failure and the

Syndicate dead, all the aliens had to do to ensure the remnants of the

project were carried out was to send in the super soldiers,

human replacements who could not be killed by our weapons. So now here

we are, on the verge of invasion, with only Aegis, a loosely connected

group of resistance cells, the only barrier between humanity and

annhilation."

"But what about William?" Dana pressed.

Mulder continued, "I really think William's the anomaly no one counted

on. Scully...Dana," he seemed to be struggling with his words, not

sure how to say what was on his mind. "You know how it was, how you

thought you couldn't have children, and after what they did to you,

you shouldn't have been able to. The in vitro didn't work, even after

four times, then one night we, um...well you know."

Scully laughed softly, "Yeah I know."

Mulder went on, "And we weren't even TRYING to have a kid then, that

was for us, and after eight years long overdue, in my opinion. But lo

and behold, what happens? It's almost as if whatever God is up there

was just waiting for that one time, after all, the artifical stuff

didn't work. And the night he was born, Dana I swear I saw that light

in the sky leading me to you. It wasn't a UFO, it wasn't a satellite.

It's like, one small miracle after another. And then when we had to

give him up...only to have him amlost literally drop

back into our lives, old enough to understand what had happened but

still young enough to give us time to raise him...it's all seemed to

work out where William is concerned. Now I'm not going to tell you

that our son is the next Jesus Christ or something, far from that. But

I know he's special, he shouldn't have been able to even be here but

he is. It's almost like, no matter what the archeologist down in the

cell in south Africa say about what was written on the UFO you found

in the sand, about how they think our whole conception of God was

what they aliens led us to believe, I think William is proof that

there really IS a God and we're being watched over."

"I hope you're right, Mulder. I really do. Because if not, we're all

in for a world of trouble." Dana replied.

William slowly closed his door and went back to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Final Stand Chapter 3**

William never knew what kind of persuasion his father employed on his

mother to get her to allow him to go to the vision quest after all,

but he suspected that she was planning on hanging around nearby

anyway, only keeping it a secret from him. Eric Hosteen had offered to

delay the whole thing, but there wouldn't be time later, they were

leaving on thier anual summer pilgrimage to see family and deal with

Aegis business. The only change was that they would set up in

Eric's backyard instead of the wilderness, but since he had a huge

open stretch of land, William didn't mind too much.

He helped Eric set up the tent and the stones set in a circle around

it. Then Eric came to him and handed him a canteen.

"There's some broth in there and another bottle of water inside the

tent, so you're all set. Remember, no cheating. If you have snacks,

turn 'em over now, bud." said Eric.

William turned his pockets inside out with a smile.

Eric laughed and said "OK, well, there's a small two way radio in the

tent, I'll be up at the house and if you need anything just call.

We're still within the boundaries of the safe zone, so you shouldn't

have any problems, but if you do, I know you have your phone gun, but

call right away. I'll be watching you but you won't see me, any sign

that you're getting sick or something I'm pulling you out, got it?"

William nodded, hoping it wouldn't come to that.

"I don't want to have to tell your mother if anything does happen,

like snakebites. Incidently, keep an eye out for rattlers, not common

on my land but not impossible either. Now remember, try to stay in a

clam state of mind. If the spirits have a message for you, and I have

a feeling they do, they'll come. Just let them come."

"How will I know if it's a message or if I'm just tripping out? And

what if I don't recognize it?" asked William.

"You will know." said Eric. "Plus, if you miss it they usually try

again until you get it."

Eric turned to leave and called over his shoulder, "Remember, don't

step out of the boundary stones until I come get you."

"Wait, Eric!" called William, "What about when I have to go to the

bathroom?"

Eric grinned widely and tossed a roll of toilet paper to William. "See

that bush over there?" he pointed, "I dug a hole behind it. That's

rapidly dissolving toilet paper, be sure to bury it good. See you in

three days!"

Eric turned nd started to walk away when William called after him,

"Just how rapidly are we talking about? Am I going to have to play

beat the clock in the bushes?" Eric snorted but didn't turn around.

William shook his head and went about settling in for three days of

soul searching. He arranged his sleeping bag, canteens and rapidly

dissolving toilet paper in a neat order in the tent, made sure the

flashlight and radio worked, then walked the entire perimeter to

explore, which wasn't very far. The only thing in the circle besides

his tent was the infamous bush. He turned a circle and observed the

landscape around him. Flat. A cactus here and there. Tumbleweeds. And

God it was hot. Eric had set him up in what passed for shade

near a stand of some cacti, but the house as the top of the rise about

a hundred yards away looked quite shadier.

He sat down and waited for the expected visit from the spirits. By

late afternoon that same day, William had discovered something about

himself alright. He discovered that, despite his unusual differences,

he definately had the attention span of a normal eleven year old. With

no books, video games, and especially no music, he hadn't realized

just what true boredom was. He half wondered if he'd die of boredom

instead of the elements.

When night fell, he found out something else about himself, that he

was still a child that really, REALLY wanted his mom and dad when it

was cold and dark and god alone knew what was creeping around outside

your tent. He wasn't allowed to make a fire, and had only the big

lantern and a flashlight to push back the darkness. He knew Eric (and

robably his mother) must be nearby and that was some comfort, but

since he could barely see anything part of his mind kept

telling him that he really WAS alone out in the middle of the desert.

As much as he tried, he couldn't keep images of supersoldiers and

aliens and government bad guys sneaking up to his tent and nabbing him

while he slept. Although he had his hand on his phone gun, and he knew

the SS couldn't come onto this land, it still made for a restless,

sleepless night. He had suffered with bouts of insomnia before, but

nothing like this. He doubted he slet more than an hour or

two that first night.

By the time the dawn rolled around, the vision quest was looking less

and less like a wonderful adventure and more like the trial that it

was. He was hungry, having finished off the broth and water the night

before, and he was releived to see Eric had left a new bottle of broth

and canteen of water by the tent. But it didn't do much for him. And

using the hole as a toilet was grossing him out, but he couldn't avoid

it. Finally he told himself to suck it up, he knew his parents had

been through worse, to stop being a baby. He thought about

practicing his karate moves to keep busy, but decided to wait until

later when the sun wouldn't be baking him alive.

Instead he slowly paced the perimeter of the circle. Without outside

stimulus for his mind, he found himself thinking more than he ever had

in his life. He thought about everything he knew about the upcoming

invasion, as well as his parents' conversation that night. He thought

about Bob and Nancy and Midveille and Josh. he thought about his

extended family, about the planet, about the impossible task ahead of

them. It was enough to make a grownup's head hurt, nevermind a kid's.

Why him? Why all of this? How the hell was HE, a kid, supposed to be

the deciding factor between two waring species for control of a

planet? It sounded like a bad scifi movie. It sounded like his

favorite book, Ender's Game. He stopped pacing and thought for a

second. Like the boy in that book, the fate of humanity had rested on

him, a child, over a coming alien invasion. And yet that

boy, who wanted nothing more than to simply be a child, to be loved by

his family and left alone, had basically been forced into his role and

tricked into doing the job that was required of him. And when all was

said and done, the boy was nearly shattered. Was that to be his own

fate?

William sat down on the ground and thought about the Bible school

classes he had gone to in Midville. He absentmindedly hummed "Michael

Row Your Boat Ashore", which had been Nancy's favorite song. He

realized he was about the same age Jesus had been when he learned he

was God's son. William wondered for a second what that would be like,

to be a kid his age and suddenly have it revealed to you that your

father wasn't your father, the creator of the universe was, and that

this would mean a life of hardship, a horrifying death,

ect. ect. That must have really shook Him up. William doubted he would

take such news himself without his head exploding. It was too much,

too big a responsibility, especially for a child. He didn't want this

role that was pre-ordained for him. He doubted he was anything like

Jesus, but it was a huge situation all the same. Jesus had eventually

taken up his role at the age of thirty, and William wanted another

eighteen years to himself to work it all out. But time was up. He had

only six months.

The way he saw it, there was this big bully of a race that simply

wanted to come in and take thier planet with total disregard to thier

race and thier civilization. It reminded him of the stories of the

European conquerors and the Native Americans. The Europeans had the

bigger firepower and technolog and therefore considered it thier right

to invade and overthrow the rich cultures of the people already here.

And due to thier arrogance, untold amounts of data in math, science

and astronomy were lost when the Indians' writings and books

were destroyed by the conquerors. But they survived anyway, although

somewhat diminished. How different would the world be today if the

Europeans had not won, had been driven out? The United States probably

wouldn't be here.

But then there was the example of Hitler invading most of Europe. That

wasn't a good thing at all, millions of people died all because one

dicator thought he had the right to rule the world. So what then? What

was the right thing to do? Restless again, he got up to resume his

pacing.

That night was no better than the first, except pure exhaustion was

starting to catch up with him. He was running out of things to think

about, was sick of pacing the circle, and had figured that the spirits

didn't want to talk to him anyway. He was ready to go home, but he was

no quitter and was determined to stay the whole time. He only had 24

more hours to go. The third day was the worst. He was beyond hunger,

even with the daily supply of broth and water. He knew he was feeling

some dehydration, and he felt weak. He knew he should call

Eric over the radio but kept putting it off, hoping to hold out just a

few more hours. He had barely slept in three days and was starting to

feel like he was dreaming even though he was sure he was awake. It was

around late afternoon on the third day that his eyes started playing

tricks on him. Eric had told him to expect it, it meant the spirits

were coming, but it was still unnerving.

For a second he was sure he saw his father standing by a cactus, but

when he blinked it was gone. He thought he heard his grandmother's

voice once, and another time he thought he heard running water. The

landscape seemed strange somehow, as if the edges weren't clearly

defined and the colors dull. He could feel himself dozing and drifting

in and out, hearing flashes of memory, of his life in Midville,

various songs from "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and "Shout

to the Lord," to his parents' favorite song, "Joy to the World". He

found himself humming the part "Jeremiah was a bullfrog..." over and

over, thoughtlessly.

"That's a funny song..." came a child's voice to his right.

William about jumped out of his skin! He turned, suddenly alert, to

the sound of the voice and gaped in amazement as a little girl came

out from behind a cactus. Her blonde hair was whispy and she looked to

be about four years old, but William knew her right away. Her blue

eyes were the same as his, her smile just like his mother's. He was

looking at his long dead sister Emily. But that wasn't possible was

it? His father had said something about seeing ghosts before,

something his mother seemed to be prone to despite her skeptic's

approach. Was this real or was he tripping out? Was this his sign or

was he sleeping and dreaming?

The little girl smiled at his and held out her hand. "Come on,

brother. There's not much time. There's alot for you to see."

William shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere, I can't leave the

circle."

Emily said, "What circle?"

William turned to point to the stones, then stared in shock. They had

dissapeared, along with the tent and Eric's house. What the HELL was

going on? He looked at her in confusion. She smiled again. William

felt uneasiness coming over him, although he didn't feel any danger on

his mental radar. She obviously was the sign he was supposed to look

out for, but he didn't want to go wandering off iinto the desert as

out of it as he was. He stood up and looked down at her. She took his

hand. and pointed behind him.

He turned to look, expecting to see a SS or something, but felt the

shock of his life when he realized he was no longer in the desert, he

was floating in outer space! Panic swelled up in him and he fought

back a scream, but then he heard his sister's voice in his ear.

"Don't be afraid, Wil. It's just a vision, like a movie."

He settled down a little, finding he could breathe, and felt a little

better, realizing that this was just like a VR game or something. They

seemed to be floating over what looked like the Earth, but the

continents were strange. The landmasses were still drifting, Africa

had not joined Europe and the North and South American continents were

not connected. William watched fascinated as what looked like a

spacecraft came into orbit around the primordial Earth. It

was strange, alien, even stranger than the pictures of the alien

spacecraft his parents knew of. Then William knew he was looking at a

totally different race, never seen before, maybe not even by the

greys.

"Watch close," said Emily as the craft fired shot after shot of some

kind of matter into the atmosphere and oceans of the Earth as it

rotated on it's axis. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the craft sped

away into the deep darkness.

"What was that all about?" William asked. Emily didn't answer, but

pointed again and William saw that the perspective had changed, they

were now on the land watching evolution as if on a fast forward. The

masses that the craft had fired into the ocean were changing, DNA

combining, cells forming.

William watched as single celled organisms started to form, joining to

become multicellular. Ther seemed to be something wrong with the DNA,

parts of it seemed to be dissolving. What were once six base pairs now

only had four survive. But the four based pair organisms seemed more

heartier, stronger, than the thier six base pair relatives, who

quickly died out. Ocean creatures formed, fish came out of the water

and breathed with primative lungs. William watched the rise of the

reptiles, the dinosaurs, as they existed on a planet made mostly of

swamp. Mammals suddenly made an appearance, but were small and

weak and lived in hiding.

Then William saw something shocking. The race of the most intelligent

of the dinosaurs, the velociraptors, started evolving even more,

devoloping advanced brains. They started using sticks and stones as

tools, started evolving slowly into an almost primate physiology. They

were destined to become the superior species on the planet. But that

wasn't right, was it? William soon got his answer.

Another craft appeared in the heavens, different from the first one.

William knew it was the greys. He watched as landing parties and small

craft in the air analyzed the air, soil, and lifeforms. Then, William

watched in horror as they greys, without so much as a backward glace,

used what looked like some kind of gravity control to manuver a huge

asteroid onto a collision course with Earth. He felt himself cry out

in disgust and fear, as the asteroid crashed into the Yucatan, sending

up fire and earth into the sky. He watched as the sun was

blocked out and the cold blooded reptiles started dying. The

herbivores went first, when the plants died, soon followed by the

carnivores who had nothing left to hunt and eat. The semi-sentient

descendants of the velociraptors and thier emerging culture were

utterly destroyed. The Earth sunk into a nuclear winter, and fallout

from the asteroid began to settle. Glaciers formed over the

land masses and the Earth became uninhabitable for the greys. It was

too cold.

The ones who were exploring settled into a dormant state of the black

oil deep beneath the surface of the Earth, and the grey's spacecraft

flew off into space. Then the mammals began to rise, the age of the

reptiles having been abruptly destroyed. The DNA which had survived

from the first ship began to reassert itself and primates began to

form. Millenia passed and primitive anscestors of humans began to

form, the species that was known as australopithicus. They were

basically advanced knuckle draggers. They were at the same stage of

development as the raptors had been when once again the greys

came and found the Earth teeming with life.

William turned to Emily. "Why am I watching this? I didn't know about

the raptor civilization, but the rest of this I learned in school."

"Watch," she said, "What you are witnessing will be the only thing

that can save us."

William was even more confused but if his sister had come with some

message of how to win the upcoming invasion, he would watch and

remember. Were the greys planning on using another asteroid? History

said no, but maybe that's what they were planning in the future

invasion. But not this time, as William watched.

The greys came down and began to study the primative men. Then, as

William watched in disbelief, the greys began to cross thier DNA with

the primatives. Strange new offspring were born, with the physical

attributes of the austrilopithicus, but witht he intelligence of the

greys. The species homo had arrived. Homo habilis walked around,

superior to its parent species, but the greys only produced a few of

them. William fought back anger as he saw the race had been created as

a sort of slave race, being made to dig in quarries for

metals such as gold and silver and other resources. Basically, the

ancestor of modern man was created much as he mule was.

William felt a sense of anger and pride build up. How dare they! They

had no right! But his anger faded into a grin as the greys realized

thier mistake. The new species evolved quickly, much faster than ever

before. What once took several thousands of years was done in only a

hundred. They jumped from homo habilis to homo erectus, then to homo

neadertal with a sub branch of what would become homo sapiens. The

greys kept experimenting, creating new species, trying to get it under

control. The Earth was a mining colony to them, but was fast

developing into a permenant colony as they had always intended. The

early humans saw the aliens as gods, thier ships were firey chariots

in the sky.

But one race of humans seemed different. It was a species very similar

to modern man, in fact WIlliam couldn't seen any difference, except

that this race had absolutely no psychic ability. While the average

homo sapiens had a certain degree of access to other planes, this

species didn't, but they had far more advanced logical brains. Two

great empires rose up from these people, and William recognized them

as Atlantis in the Atlantic, on the early landmass that

was Cuba, and the one known as Lemuria or Mu on another landmass in

the Pacific.

The greys were alarmed. Thier mule race had risen much faster than

they ever had, they had to be controlled and quickly before they

challenged thier masters. Mu and Atlantis already were developing

aircraft and other vehicles, and had harnessed electricity and sola

energy. Abandoning all experiments and mining, the greys once again

intervened in Earth history, using a strange looking device to focus

the sun's rays on the polar ice caps. They melted rapidly, in only a

week, huge chunks of iceberg breaking off and raising the

ocean level by several hundred feet in only hours. William knew he was

watching the Great Flood of the Bible. This certainly explaiined why

nearly every culture all over the world had a Flood Myth.

William watched, helpless again, as the beautiful civilizations of

Atlantis and Mu were destroyed and humanity plunged into another era

of darkness, technology forgotten, other races destroyed and

forgotten. But the Earth was still not quite inhabitable with all the

water and unusable land mass. So once again the greys left. Over the

next few centuries scout ships returned to check up on things and it

seemed that the human race just didn't want to roll over and die.

They proliferated and rose again in another great civilization.

Finally they arrived in the present era, as scout ships returned to

observe the new civilization.

They greys now realized they couldn't depend on a natural disaster to

claim the planet, they had to wipe out the entire sentient species. In

order to do that, they had to be more covert, in the form of the

virus. But they had to ensure that humanity didn't unite against them,

or the ruse would be useless. By this time humand had devloped nuclear

weaopns and if they used them against the greys, the Earth would end

up useless to any race. Slowly and carefully, they infiltrated the

societies, influencing leaders, mostly through religions,

making sure they were misinterpreted and used as excuses for war and

genocide. Religion and emotions intrigued the greys. They were purely

a human trait. Emotions could be used to divide the huans, but they

could also be used to unite them. The bonds between related humans

were astonishing, even a little frightening. But it was religion that

got the most attention. The humans claimed the one true creator had

talked to them. They tried to verify this, copying down the hnumans'

religious texts on thier ships and computers for study.

William saw the greys' dillema. IF religion truly meant that a higher

power was talking to thier mule race, it changed the whole concept of

taking the planet and destroying them. But the greys convinced

themselves that it was nothing and moved forward with plans to retake

the planet.

"Disgusting isn't it?" said a man behind him. William turned and saw

his grandfather William Mulder, whom he had been named for, standing

behind him. At this point, William was not surprised in the least.

"Hello, Grandpa," he said.

The man smiled, "It's good to hear you say that. But I wish we could

have met under better circumstances."

He came up to William and put a hand on his shoulder. The visions of

the Earth's history faded awy into darkness and he stood there with

his grandfather. He could see vague shapes of people standing in the

distance, and he recognized some of them as his aunts Melissa and

Samantha, his grandfather Bill Scully Sr., and the three Lone Gunemen,

surrounded by several others.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked his grandfather.

Bill Mulder looked down at his son's son. "It was my hope that my son,

your father, would fight the coming future, and he has, with your

mother's help. But there are places even they can't go. The situation

has changed with the death of the Plan and the Syndicate. Now, a new

route must be taken, one only you can travel. Do you remember the

first ship you saw that fired the DNA into Earth's oceans?"

William nodded and his grandfather continued, "They were a race that

has long since dissapeared, a race no one has ever lain eyes on. They

are known by many names, but they are the life givers, the gardeners

of the galaxy. They traveled from system to system, dropping thier DNA

into planets, hoping life would form. On many different worlds,

species so different from each other you could not believe they had

common ancestory emerged. But one thing they all had in common

remained."

"Thier DNA?" asked William.

"Yes." Bill Mulder continued, "Thier DNA, a six base pair DNA, this

distingushed them from other life forms. They may look different but

all offspring of that original race are bipedal homonids, with two

eyes and a mouth, and above all, psychic, telelkenetic and telepathic

abilities."

"But humans only have four base pairs, and we can't do all that

stuff." countered William.

Bill Mulder smiled a pained sort of grimace, "We could if they had

left us the hell alone. You saw how the raptors were developing.

Another few millenia and they would be a reptillian race capable of

all of that. Yes, they would have only had a four base pair DNA, but

for some reason on this world, the four base pair worked better for

life than the six. This is the reason the greys wiped them out. You

see, in the greater more connected society of the species who are

known decendants of the seeders, they only recognize sentient, or

worthwhile life, as those who are six base paired life forms, because

this is proof that they too are offspring of the seeding race.

Therefore, since the raptor race only had four base pairs, it was

decided that they were not worthwhile life and were open for

destruction so the greys could colonize thier planet. And the

same mentality goes for us, humans are only a four base pair

lifeform."

"But that's crazy!" stormed William. "Look at us! We have spaceships

of our own, we've walked on the moon. We have vehicles and a

civilization, everything! How can they say w're not sentient or

worthwhile to live? Who are they to make that call? They KNOW we're an

advanced civilization, we're around even after they tried over and

over to wipe us out. And if we're so useless and expendable, why

experiment with us in the first place?"

"Because," said Bill Mulder, "As you say, they know damn well what

they're doing. But they can explain it away on the four base DNA

bullshit.' It's ok because they're not one of us, we have six, they

have four.' But they experimented with us for that very reason. You

saw how the Atlanteans and Mu people had no psychic ability? Well, the

reason for that is entirely the greys. You see, humans could do all

the things the greys can do, telekenisis, telepathy, all of that, and

more even. We can connect with the true higher power and heavenly

realms, we can concieve of angels and other unseen beings

beyond anything they can do. The only reason it remains a vestigial

talent, is due to the flow of blood to the human brain. We use only

ten percent of our brains, for everything, from body functions to

thinking. The other ninety percent is the phsychic ability, but it's

not active because the brain doesn't recive enough blood flow and

nutrients to sustain the energy it needs. It's like having a 100 watt

bulb but only enough electricty to put out 30 watts. They altered our

physiology such that we couldn't take in enough food or air to

do all of that, at least now now anyway.

If we were to evolve more, probably. But right now, half the food we

eat and air we breathe goes to power that ten percent. We'd be eating

all day and on oxygen just to stay alive if we used all of our brains.

But you, Wil, you're different."

William shook, not sure he wanted to hear this. His grandfather

continued, "Like your friend Gibson Praise and a few other people on

the planet, you brains are activated in certain areas that normally

aren't. But you are far above them all. You have access to all of your

brain's functions, but on a normal human metabolism. What this means

is, you can use your abiltes, but not all at once. If you decide to

use telekinisis, for example, you would use up so much energy that you

probably wouldn't be able to move for a while afterwards,

and you'd be so hungry you could eat a whale. And it would depend on

how hard you use the ability. Moving a small object probably wouldn't

hurt too much, but moving a truck could knock you out cold."

William took it all in. It made sense, why his unique talent came out

at a time when he was excited or using alot of energy. But while all

of this was very intriguing, it didn't help him know how to stop the

invasion. What was the point in showing him all of this? The only

thing he seemed to have learned was that the greys considered them to

be more worthless than pond scum beause they were short a few DNA base

pairs, and that they wanted the Earth for themselves, had wanted it

for years, and had demonstrated a revolting lack of concern for

life on several occasions, by slamming a meteor the size of Arkansas

down to kill the dinosaurs, and melting the polar ice caps to kill the

humans. None had been entirely successful in that there were still

reptiles and humans, but it had succeeded in wiping out the current

civilization. So how they hell was that supposed to help them win this

time?

If the aliens had that kind of technology back then, how far had it

advanced since then? They had super soldiers running around in

strategic places, a virus ready to be unleashed and if that didn't

work, they could always try the asteroid thing again. What did

humanity have? A space shuttle? What a laugh, it was like trying to

fly a hot air balloon at an F-16 and hope you hit it. Humans

have guns but that would require getting through Al's protecive

technology to use it. Scully had wondered initially if using a virus

of their own might work, as in War of the Worlds, but how to

administer it was another story. It was known from abductees that

there were always decontamination devices all over the alien ships.

William looked up and asked, "How is any of this supposed to help me?

Help us? Knowing all this stuff only makes me see what we're really up

against, ruthless and unfeeling THINGS who could give a damn about our

protests and claims to the planet. They don't care, and we can't beat

them with technology. We're out of options. Yeah the Mag guns might

work, but even Dad says it a 50/50 chance,"

Bill Mulder sighed, and said "Son, don't you get it? Don't you see? Of

course humanity can't stop them. Oh we can give them a good fight,

maybe even hurt them bad enough to where they'll back off for a few

generations, then come back. But for the past few million years they

invested in this planet, for reasons even I don't know. A bunch of

upstart rebells aren't going to make them give up now, and no psychic

kid is going to either. It's not your job to stope THEM, William, but

to summon the ones who CAN."

William's head spun. Summon? What was he, a wizard? No way. And summon

who? Or what?

"Summon? Summon what?" he asked. "Who the hell could stop them? The

clones and hybrids?"

"No, Wil," said Bill Mulder, "The ones they answer to. Didn't you hear

me say there was a society in the galaxy? The greys aren't the only

race besides us descended from the orignial race, there are others,

many others. And they all live by one code, to leave in peace with

thier brother races. What the greys have done is against thier law.

They've tampered with and altered a race left by the founders, they've

attempted genocide on several occasions, this is not allowed by the

society's law, because they so revere the founder race. To

disturb what the founders had set in motion is the closet thing to a

sacrilege beings without emotions can reach. Because if one race will

treat it's brother race in that manner, nothing would stop that race

from conquering another. It's thier way of maintaining order and

lessening warfare."

"But you said they all share a common 6 base DNA, how could we prove

that we're thier brother race if we only have 4? They may agree with

the greys, that we're expendable animals to be used and discarded. We

could end up with several races coming to do us in instead of one."

protested William.

"Son, when you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose. If you don't

call for help, you WILL be conquered. Humanity can't fight them off

alone." said Bill.

"So how do I call for help?" asked William.

"Just call, with your heart and mind, see if you can't reach them."

Bill replied.

"And what's to keep the greys from intercepting it?" asked William.

"I don't know." Bill replied reluctantly, "But it seems that telepathy

only works if you WANT someone to hear it. What Gibson can do is

unique because he can hear thoughts that are not intended for him to

could be because the average person does not know how to

direct thier thoughts. But think about when you talk to him

telepathically. You only hear each other when you want to.

Either that or just pray they aren't listening. Remember, they think

it's an anomaly for a human to be able to talk this way anyway, much

less to send out that kind of signal. But they know it's possible.

Just remember what I told you about what happens when you expend that

kind of energy on a mental task. Remember what it might do to you.

This is your job, William. This is why you're here, because you are

the only human on the planet, even beyond Gibson who could talk the

way the rest of the founder's races can. That's why you're

special, that's why God sent you to the parents He did."

William was thunderstruck! "God sent me?"

Suddenly a woman appeared to his right, and he recognized his mother's

sister, his aunt Melissa. "That's right, baby." She smiled at him.

"The one thing the greys never understood, the one thing they won't

let themselves comprehend. For all that they revere the founding race,

they won't let themselves think about who created the founders, or who

inspired the founders to set off across the galaxy seeding other

worlds. They never stopped to ask why humans have the one

advantage they don't, we live in a world of spirit and emotions, not

logic and material. We recognize the existance of the soul, at least

most humans do. We have access to the plane of the spirit, the

afterlife, and energy. Our race, for all that it's been tampered with,

has also been guided by another force, the same force who sent down

its own wisdom when our creators had abandoned us, the same great

being who gave us the guides that led us to a civilization that

grew faster than any in the galaxy. You see, for all that religion has

been twisted and used for personal gain of various humans through

history, in it's pure form, it tells the only truth. That above the

greys, above all life, is one unmovable being who created everything.

And it doesn't matter which religion you want to look at, they all say

the same thing.

Forget the rules of the Christian church, or the laws of Judaism, or

the beliefs of Islam, even Buddhism. The base of every religion says

the same thing, just in different words. And that is, there is

something greater than ourselves and we are related to it. And that's

who sent you, Wil. You're the one human who is not a part of all this

manipulative mess. You were born to two people who love each other the

same way this being loves all that its created, and they love you.

Through thier example, you'll find the strength to save all

of humanity. I know that doesn't make sense now, but it will."

His aunt gave him a hug and faded back into the distance. His

grandfather smiled and hugged him as well. "Good luck, boy. Just

remember, you're not alone." Then he, too, faded away.

"Time to go, brother," said the small voice behind him. He turned and

saw Emily holding out her hand. He took it and she led him towars the

darkness, which turned into the blackness of space again, the stars

shining like diamonds.

"Go on," she urged, "Call them."

Not knowing exactly what to do or say, William called out, "Hello?

Anyone out there?"

Emily giggled. William sighed a little annoyed, then closed his eyes,

reaching down with ever ounce of will he could muster. He MUST do

this, or they were all dead.

"Hello? HELL-OOOO! Can anyone hear me?" he mentally yelled,

praying none of the greys were listening.

'Please, God if you're up there don't let the greys hear.' he asked.

The he resumed calling, "Please, anyone, anyone at all...can you

hear me? We need help! Someone please help us!" He thought about his

family, his parents, his friends, his world, all dying a slow horrible

death and called again, getting desperate. His grandfather was right

about the energy expendature, he felt himself growing weak.

Suddenly, unbelievably, came a response! It was strange, an alien

mind, but not unkindly, more confused than anything. "Greetings...we

hear you. But who are you? We do not recognize your race mind."

William prayed for the right words, "Please I am called a human. We

are a race that is offspring to the seeders, the founders who spread

life through the galaxy. We're under attack by another race. They will

come to destroy us. They have tried before and succeeded in destroying

another seeder offspring race on our planet. Now they want to destroy

us. I was told this was against the law."

Now the alien mind sounded really confused, "Surely you must be

mistaken. We know of no race called 'human.' And what you are accusing

is very serious indeed, if accurate. Why do we not hear more of your

people at your location?"

William felt himself strining to the breaking pint to keep the

connection, and he didn't have time for a lengthy debate. "We are

still an evolving people. This attacking race has altered us to thier

own purpose, as slaves. But when we grew on our own they sought to

destroy us and take the planet for themselves. We would have the

ability to talk to you if we had not been alterend and limited. I

don't know why I can speak to you, but I can and I'm speaking for my

people. We are a child race still growing but being forced back into

childhood. We haven't got the technology yet to stop them. They are a

much older race than we are. Will you help us? Can you help us? Even

if you can't, know that this race is breaking one of your most sacred

laws. If they do this to us, they could do it to someone else, maybe

you. Isn't it worth even checking out?"

"Agreed." came the reply, "But we still must verify that your race

has a..." The voice faded out and William felt himself falling.

Suddenly he was lying on his back, floating, and Emily stood above

him.

She smiled at him and bent down and kissed him on the cheek. William

felt a warm glow fill his heart, the same one he had felt when he

hugged his mother for the first time. He smiled sleepily up at his

sister, then faded away into deep slumber.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Final Stand Chapter 4**

The first thing William became aware of was the steady beeping sound.

Then he became aware that he was cold. The next thing he felt was a

headache that would make a migraine feel like a paper cut. He groaned

in agony and whimpered. Instantly, he felt his mother's arms around

him and felt her rocking him slowly.

"It's OK, Wil, it's OK. I'm here now.." she whispered.

Slowly he opened his eyes. Everything was a blur and out of focus but

he could see he wasn't outside anymore. He was in a hospital and the

beeping was from the monitors. He felt someone else move in bside them

and heard his father's voice.

"Hey buddy, welcome back. You gave us a hell of a scare. Scared Eric

too, he found you out cold on the ground."

Scully sounded a bit more miffed. "I knew it, I knew it was a bad

idea." She hugged him closer.

"How long was I out?" asked William.

"Almost a day," said his mother. "William, what happened?"

He slowly lay back and smiled at his parents before drifting back off

into sleep. "I called 9-1-1."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, puzzled. William ended up

staying in the hospital for an extra day for obsevation, then, the

doctors satisfied he was on the mend, was sent home.

In the days that followed, William begun to understand the meaning of

the term "mother-smothered." Dana Scully had been very upset by what

had happened and had to convince herself that her son was really ok.

That involved confining him to bed for the next few days drinking a

gallon of water a day. Mulder had been frightened too, but was more

convinced that William was not going to die from his ordeal. After

arriving back home, and to pass the time, William wrote down

everything he could remember about his experiences and gave them to

his parents to read. They had held off from questioning him for the

most part, but as they read the notes, the questions came pouring out.

Scully seemed to think that it was all a dehydration induced

hallucination, but Mulder, who had himself been through the Navajo

ritual of the Blessing Way, was all too familiar with such

experiences. And the information was intriguing. If it was correct, it

meant that they were all either in deeper trouble than they

thought, or maybe there was a ray of hope for the human race after

all.

On the third day, William was on his computer talking with Josh via

video conferencing. He hadn't given his friend the details of his

vision quest, opting instead to simply tell him that VR games had

nothing on the ancient ceremony. Scully popped in once to gather up

some laundry and to admonish both boys not to try anything like the

vision quest without adults around. After assuring Josh that they

would be visiting later that summer, William signed off

and went out to enjoy the first day outside since his mother sprang

him from his imprisonment.

He walked out into the backyard and saw his mother swinging in the

hammock. He walked over and crawled up next to her.

"Where's Dad?" he asked.

"Finishing up that intersession psychology class he was teaching at

the college. He'll be home later this afternoon." She paused a second,

then said, "We want you to come to the Aegis meeting tonight, you

might need to tell them what you saw."

William was momentarily stunned. Him? An eleven year old kid speak to

all those grownups about his vision? He knew about the meeting, of

course. It would be the first time since its inception that all the

leaders of Aegis would be together in the same room, hell the same

town, for any period of time. They had planned to disuss the final

preparations before the invasion in six months. It would be the last

time they would all see each other alive, probably. Agents

Doggett and Reyes were coming along with Director Skinner, from the

FBI. Lone Gunmen Jimmy and Yves had arrived last night with what

information they had. Several others from various clusters were

arriving either by car or plane all throughout the day. William hadn't

even expected to be there himself, figuring he was going to be left at

a friend's house or with a babysitter. Tomorrow was the fourth of July

and they had been planning a BBQ and fireworks, possibly the

last party or festive time they would ever have as a group. He had

been planning on going to the picnic, but not the actual meeting.

Not knowing what to say, he simply nodded and snuggled close to his

mother. The day was beautiful for a summer day, not too hot and

breezy. They were under the shade of the arbor and could see the

clouds passing by. William relaxed, enjoying the day and wondered if

he would ever have a normal life. It was as normal as his parents

could make it, sending him to Pecos Elelmentary School,

involving him in activities, giving him birthday parties and vacations

to Disney World. But there was always the unspoken invasion

overshadowing it all. Like the way he had to carry his phone weapon

everywhere and be on the lookout not just for strangers following him

but UFO's in the sky. It was in the way that his father always set up

portable motion detectors in the hotel rooms they stayed in, as well

as his grandmother's house. It was the fact that Roswell was

the only place his parents felt safe enough to let him go outside by

himself, which he was never allowed to do at his grandmother's house

or anywhere else also reminded them of the inevitable future.

They stayed outside for a long time, just looking at the clouds, both

wondering about what was to come. Scully knew her son was scared, but

she admired the way he handled himself, never giving in to panic. She

knew it must be a terrible strain on him, and she knew it wasn't fair

that he should have to live like this. She alsmost wished he had never

started searching for her, never started the chain of events that had

alerted those dark forces to his whereabouts, killed his adoptive

parents, and destroyed the safe haven she had made for him.

But she was so glad she had him back now. She knew, as she had perhaps

always known, that no place was really safe, not even Roswell. After

all was said and done, she was his mother and he belonged with her and

Mulder. She felt terrible guilt and sadness for the Van de Kamps and

hoped God would forgive her for putting them in this situation that

had ended thier lives. And speaking of God, where was he right now?

She remembered a vague dream she and Mulder and William

had all had on the night they had brought him home to Roswell, of all

three of them on a beach. The Van de Kamps had been there, and there

had been a voice and a glowing cross in a fog. She had wondered if it

had been a sign from God or wishful thinking. She supposed they were

all about to find out.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 

Later that night, Mulder, Scully and William walked into the giant

meeting hall of the local church that they had rented for the night

for the meeting. William, bowing to his mother's wishes, had put on

his nice shirt and shorts, and his parents had put on thier work

suits. Several people were gaurding the doors and surrounding area,

and William could see the telltale bulge of both MagGuns and regular

guns beneath thier coats. But other than that, it looked

for all the world like a simple large meeting, with chairs set up and

a podium in the front, as well as a table heaped with sandwiches,

punch, fruit and cheeses and cookies. After giving a plaintive look to

his father, William scooted off for the table with Mulder calling

after him not to go too far.

It seemed like all of Aegis was here as well as thier families.

William waved to several children he recognized from his neighborhood

who were the sons and daughters of scientists, government officials,

military personel and other assorted professions, all whose parents

had come to Roswell for the express purpose of joining the underground

resistance against the invasion. Like him, these children had been

raised on the knowledge of the future and he felt a certain

familiarity with them. Gibson Praise came in with his friend Doug

Eagleman, followed by Eric Hosteen and his father, Albert Hosteen's

son. He spotted Reyes and Doggett and Skinner talking to his parents

up front and Jimmy and Yves nearby. He scooped up some more sandwiches

on a plate and grabbed a cup of punch, and turned to go to his

parents. Suddenly he bumped into someone, nearly spilling his

looked up and felt his mouth drop open.

It was Jeremiah Smith, or one of them anyway. He knew them to be

clones, half alien and half human hybrids created by the Syndicate who

had rebelled against them and were fighting with the resistance now.

William had seen one of them before (or was it this one?) but, knowing

what he now knew, he openly stared. This man was part alien. He could

sense it in the man's thought processes, as Gibson could. Also, he

knew, the man could change physical appearances. He didn't sense any

bad feelings from the man, but was still uneasy with the alien

presence. The man only smiled, excused himself and walked on. William

shook himself and went to sit down next to his parents.

What followed in the next two hours ranged from attnetion gripping

interest to coma-inducing boredom. Several people got up to speak

about the progress of thier particular field in the resistance

movemnt, which would be carried back to the indavidual cells and

clusters of people who had not come to the meeting. A group from the

Center for Disease Control reported that 2/3 of America had

been vaccinated with the vaccine with more every day, that similar

reports from other countries insured that over half of the human

population would survive the virus holocaust. However, they reported,

it was likely that with the death of the Syndicate and the destruction

of the bee fields, the virus would likely be airborne now, as well as

inserted into food and water sources and, thought he vaccine worked on

all forms of the virus, to be on the lookout. A man in a

military uniform reported that several groups within the military had

placed various troops in strategic locations and armed them with the

new MagGuns adpated for tanks and ships. He said that while the

average serviceman didn't know much about the upcoming threat, they

had been told to be on alert for December and any time before that. It

seemed though, that the higher levels of the military were still

operating until vestigial Syndicate orders, and so the bulk of the

resistance in the military were enlisted men, who would do most of

the fighting.

Skinner, Doggett and Reyes spoke about the government itself, and

those they had formed contacts with in Congress and the CIA who could

be trusted. They had extensive information from former Syndicate

sources stating that the aliens knew about Aegis, probably even the

weapons, and were possibly stepping up the timetable, meaning that the

invasion could come at any time, maybe even later than December, just

to throw us off. It wasn't clear if they knew about the

vaccine, though Reyes figured they didn't, otherwise it would be more

likely that they would postpone the invasion until a new virus could

be developed. Jimmy and Yves spoke about the warnings and preparations

they had been putting out on the internet the past decade, avoiding

detection from the government as best they could, warning people about

the upcoming invasion. Groups such as MUFON and NICAP had been sending

out the word, preparing people, anyone who would listen, about what

was coming.

Finally, Mulder and Scully got up to speak about alternatives, and

that was hiding. Scully had been in contact with several groups in

northern Canada, South America and Africa who had built hiding

facilities in the jungles and underground caves where people were

stocking up on everything from food to books and recordings of

everything they could save on the human civilization. It was a sort of

Noah's Ark and was considered a final ditch effort at saving

anyone who could carry on the present civilization after the

invasion. William was beginning to think that they had forgotten about

wanting him to speak and was just beginning to relax when Mulder

announced that his son would speak about his vision during a vision

quest.

William felt his face turn red as Mulder spoke, "My son is a very

special person. From the moment he was concieved it became apparent

that he was important in the entire business in a way we didn't

understand. We had people telling us he was a miracle, others telling

us to terminate Scully's pregancy, to not let this baby be born. When

he was born, several SS arrived, even though Dana had been hidden. We

knew they were there to take him away from us, but when he was born,

for reasons we still don't fully understand, they left him

alone and left the scene. From that day, it seemed everyone and thier

grandfather wanted him. Members of a strange UFO cult in Canada

kidnapped him, saying that the SS were angels and he was thier leader

who would bring God's kingdom to Earth. This was a quite a

misinterpretation on thier parts about the SS, but it didn't change

the fact that William was important to the Super Soldiers. From what

we heard, whoever raised William would be the ones whose

victory in the upcoming battle would be ensured. This is why I was

marked. The SS figured that if I raised my son to my own values, he

would fight against them. If they took him, he would end up fighting

on thier side. My brother Jeffery decided to end this debate by

hampering William's gifts with a magnetite injection, but this didn't

work as well as he had hoped.

So we did the only thing we could do to keep him safe. Dana arranged

for him to be adopted by an annonymous couple and raised in secret.

This fell apart three years ago following the murders of these people

and William came to be with us again. From an early age, William has

demonstrated amazing abilites, some of which many of you are familiar

with. However, just last week he underwent a special test of the local

Native American tribe, and he saw something I'd like for him to share

with you."

Mulder beckoned to his son, and, face still on fire, William slowly

went to the podium. He stood on a box to reach the microphone and was

relieved when his parents stayed up there with him. He looked out into

the sea of faces and felt his knees knocking together. Scully put a

hand on his sholulder and whispered, "Don't be afraid, Wil. Just tell

them as best you can."

Gulping, William pulled out the papers he had written for his parents

describing what he saw. In as much detail as he could his wavering

voice described seeing the birth and evolution of all life on Earth

and the creation of modern man from an already evloving species. He

descibed what he had been told by his grandfather Bill Mulder about

other species all arising from one founding species, and that to

tamper with or make war on a brother species was considered against

the law of the galaxy, that it had been ignored in thier

case becuase humans and all life on Earth had only four DNA base pairs

while offspring species of the founders had six. William stressed,

though, that he had been told that life on Earth was also from the

founding species and therefore what had been done to them was wrong,

although it should seem obvious. He also told them abolut sending out

a distress call as best he could and having made contact with some

unknown entity. Coming to a close, William stepped back behind his

mother who leaned into the microphone.

"People," she said, "Niether I nor Mulder can confirm or deny any of

this, but I believe my son. I can't say for sure how much of this I

can accept, and I do not suggest we should change any of our plans,

but I'd like to know how all of you think this might fit into the

whole operation."

Mulder then spoke up, "Also, taking into account that yet another

entity is involved or knows about what's going on, we have no way of

confirming that they'll be any help. Hell, they may agree with the

greys and decide we need to be eradicated. Or they may do nothing at

all. But if they decide to help us, we just might have a real fighting

chance."

William slipped back to his chair as questions broke out and everyone

started speaking at once. William glanced over his shoulder at

Jeremiah Smith, whose expression had not changbed a bit. Then, he

turned and stared at William and winked.

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Though the mood of the meeting had ended on a grim note, the family of

three had decided to go ahead with thier anual trip to visit freinds

and family. William was glad to be going to see everybody, but nervous

about leaving the safety of the magnetite zone. he had a bad feeling

that unseen forces were just waiting to pounce like a fox waiting for

rabbit to come out of its hole in the ground. He knew his parents felt

the same way, but it didn't stop them from flying out of Santa Fe a

week later headed for Des Moines.

William always enjoyed visiting Midville. For the first six years of

his life he had grown up in the small town knowing everybody and,

though Josh's family had really been the only ones he had been close

to, he missed the familiarity of the small town. The first summer he

had visited with his birth parents, they had gone out to the farm

where he had lived with Bob and Nancy Van de Kamp. He had wanted to

see it and so had his mother. But once in sight of it, William

felt a desolate feeling come over him and had wanted to leave. The

farm now belonged to another family and it was someone else's home. He

always left roses on the graves of his adoptive parents and they

managed to squeeze in going to his old church at least once a visit.

But it was visiting with Josh that William really looked forward to.

The boys had remained friends, even with a four year age gap and

several hundred miles between them. Thank God for the internet. Josh's

parents and sister had been equally as glad to see him and

meet his birth parents.

During this year's visit, William had been told not to mention

antyhing to anyone about the upcoming war. There was nothing any of

them could do about it and it was better if they just didn't know, to

let them live out the rest of the few months in peace. What's more, it

was likely that Midville wouldn't be a high priority area in the

invasion anyway, so it was likely everyne would survive the intial

wave of attacks. After that, if the humans were going to win

it would depend on how well the intial attack was diverted anyway.

William found it hard to keep quiet, especially with Josh asking him

every five minutes what was up. William just contented himself with

spending as much time as possible with his friend. After all, even if

Midville survived the invasion, there was no garuntee William himself

would.

It's a strange realization for a child to come to, contemplating his

own immenent death. After all, what eleven year old lived his life as

if he only had five months left? Maybe one with terminal cancer.

William had been surprised with himself at how calmly he was taking

it. The only thing he hoped for was that it wouldn't hurt too much

when his time finally came. He wouldn't allow himself to wonder if he

would survive. he hoped he would, but steeled himself for the worse as

his parents seemed to be doing. They only spent three days in Midville

and William walked to the cemetary with his mother the last

afternoon. She laid a white rose on the Van de Kamps' graves, and

whispered, "Thank you both, for everything."

With a brief hug to William, she turned and walked a few steps away to

give him some time to himself. William looked down at the headstone

marking the graves, remembering three years ago standing here with

Doggett and Reyes. A super soldier had come to get him and he shivered

in memory. He remembered his dream of the beach, with Bob and Nancy

dressed in radiant white smiling at him as they vanished into a

brilliant white fog. He remembered the booming voice and

the glowing cross. The voice had said they were not alone, they were

being protected. Was it true? He had been raised to believe in God,

but did he really?

Had it been God or another force that had spoken to him during his

vision quest? And if there was a God, would He help them? He had

prayed for help as he knew his parents and many other had, but so far

they had not gotten an answer. The aliens were still coming. He closed

his eyes trying to quiet the turmoil of his mind, when he felt the

wind blow his hair. The sun peeked out from behind a cloud nd shone

right down onto his head. As he opened his eyes, he was suddenly

ware of how beautiful a day it was, and how pretty the churchyard was.

Trees, swayed in the wind, a cool breeze swept thorugh the town, the

sun was shining in the most clear blue sky he had ever seen. He let

his mind wander back to Sunday school at this same church, and the

stories they had learned through the songs they had sung. He

remembered the stories telling about how humans were favored best of

all creation, even over the angels, how they had been given

paradise and this beautiful planet. They certainly hadn't done a good

job of showing any gratitude for it, maybe they deserved to loose it?

What would it look like when the grey's got a hold of it?

No, he told himself. It's ours.

He looked into the distance and saw a storm cloud far off. It was

casting a rainbow across the distant sky. Suddenly he remembered the

stoy of Noah, and how the rainbow was the promise that humanity would

never be destroyed again. Was this a sign? A sign form God? He felt

that it was and felt a weight lift from his chest. He smiled.

Looking down at Bob and Nancy's graves, he whispered, "No more. No

more of this. No one else is going to die, no more families are going

to be torn apart. I'm ending this. I promise you."

He turned and wlked back to his mother.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Leaving Midville was always hard and waving goodbye to Josh made

William certain he would never seem him or the town again. He didn't

even try to fight back the tears as they drove away. Mulder tried to

lighten the mood by getting them to sing along to old Ray Stevens

goofball songs. William never thought he'd see the day where he and

his parents were singing along to "Osama Yo Mama"...

"Osama, Yo Mama didn't raise you right

When you were young she must've wrapped your turban too tight

She shoulda kept you home on those Arabian nights..."

They sang along to "Ahab the Arab" and "Sitting up with the Dead"

amongst others. By the time they were on the third verse of

"Mississippi Squirrel Revival" William was feeling a little better.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Final Stand Chapter 5**

They always enjoyed visiting Washington D.C. This was where William

had lived with his parents before going to live with Bob and Nancy and

there was alot of history for his family in this city. William enjoyed

looking at the monuments and museums, the federal offices and the

historic sections. This was where his godparents, Agents Doggett and

Reyes and Mr. Skinner lived, as well as Jimmy and Yves, the last two

Lone Gunmen. But most of all, this was where his Grandma

Maggie lived. She was always so happy to see them, especially William,

and always made a big fuss over them when they visited. Scully was

especially glad to see her mother and this year, her brothers Charlie

and Bill,Jr. would be there with thier families for a sort of family

reunion. Even though William was the youngest of the children, he

always enjoyed being with his cousins. He could whip Matty in VR

Nintendo Mutant Monkeys and CyberMario Bros. any day. He

liked his uncle Charlie alot, who didn't seem to mind much about his

parents and thier pasts and was always ready with a joke or cool story

from the Navy to tell. Dana Scully had decided to let her younger

brother in on Aegis three years earlier and Charlie was a key role in

the Navy for them.

But it was Bill Jr. that William rather disliked. Even though the man

was his uncle, and William liked his aunt and cousins alot, he didn't

need special psychic talents to see that Bill Jr. was extremely

annoyed with his sister Dana for the choices she had made in her life.

And he didn't even bother to hide his disdain and hatred of Fox

Mulder. It made William fighting mad to overhear his uncle berating

his mother for joining the FBI, giving up being a doctor,

getting involved with Mulder, having his bastard son, getting thier

sister Melissa killed, it went on and on. Last year William had

stormed into the kitchen howling in fury at his uncle, using language

he wasn't accustomed to using, and letting his uncle know in no

uncertain terms that he would not hear his mother spoken to that way.

Dana had swooped down, and taken her son upstairs, grateful to escape

her brother. William couldn't understand why his parents put up with

it, but his father had explained that while they were guests in Maggie

Scully's house, they would treat her son with respect. William

had countered that he never showed them respect, but Mulder had

assured his son that Bill Jr. got plenty of heat from Maggie when

nobody was around for the way he treated his sister and her family.

Charlie Scully also was known to tell his brother to shut up once or

twice. But for the most part, the family enjoyed being together. The

kids got along well enough, although once Matthew had taken his

father's tauntings and called William "a bastard kid whose parents

couldn't even do the decent thing and get married." William never

quite knew what had happened next but Matthew had suddenly found

himself sitting on the roof of the shed, mouth hanging open in

shock. Mulder and Bill Jr. had had to get an extending ladder to get

him down and Dana had given her son a stern lecture about losing his

temper and letting the telekenisis explode. But aside form these small

mishaps, the family gathering were usually quiet.

They spent this visit touring the city, meeting with Aegis members,

visiting family graves and being with friends. William knew his

parents missed the city and wished they could live here permanently

again, but it wasn't safe and the longer they were away from Roswell,

the more danger there was. They couldn't stay in one place too long

and there were still some indaviduals who were looking for them.

On the last night of their stay, William walked out onto the back

porch and saw his mother and grandmother sitting on the back swing.

"Is it realy that bad, Dana?" Maggie was asking.

"Yeah, mom, it is," she answered. "It's better if EVERYBODY is in

Roswell this Christmas. Skinner, John, Monica, everyone's going to

come. Naturally Charlie's coming, but I didn't tell Bill why. I just

said it's me and Mulder's turn to do Christmas at our house. He

grumbled something about Christmas in the desert. Mom, you have to

make him come."

"I will, I will, but Dana...are we, I mean...are we going to...is it

really...?" his grandmother struggled.

"Yes mom." Dana said firmly "I don't know what the outcome will be but

I do know this city is a primary target."

Maggie nodded glumly. Dana turned and saw William. "Are you packed

Wil?" she asked. He nodded. She smiled softly, "Then you better get

some sleep. We head to Europe tomorrow." William went over and hugged

his mother and grandmother, then went inside.

As he passed the den, he heard his uncles and father talking in

hushed, but strained tones. His cousins were huddled next to the door

listening. William scooted down on the floor to listen. His uncle Bill

was talking.

"I just don't understand why you haven't married her, Mulder."

Fox Mulder's reply was clipped but slow, like a teacher explaining to

a child, "You think I haven't asked her? Repeatedly. She said yes, for

your information, but there's just too much going on right now.

There's no way we could pull off the kind of wedding she wants, and

deserves, with all that's going on right now. Besides, I don't see

where it's any of your business. And frankly, Bill, I'm getting real

sick of your insults over and over. Jesus Christ man, don't

you ever get tired of harping on the same subject?"

"No more than you do," Bill replied coldly. "Aliens and shit,

invasion, conspiracies. You think I'm going to let my sister marry a

freak like you? Then she goes and has your kid, like some high school

girl..."

William was shaking in anger and was about to storm in when he heard

his father reply with a tone he had never heard before, deadly calm,

"You leave William out of this, Bill. He's just a child, he is NOT to

blame for anything. And neither I nor your sister regret a single

thing. We love him."

"Yeah? Then why did she dump him?" Bill said matter-of-factly.

Charlie spoke up now, "Bill, you know damn well why, and it had

nothing to do with wanting him or not wanting him. He was in danger.

They've put alot of people behind bars and they have friends who are a

little pissed about that. William was in danger, hell man he was

kidnapped, attacked several times. If your kids were in danger and you

couldn't keep them safe, what would you do?"

Bill said, "Might have been different if he hadn't run out on her."

Mulder was expressing a herculean effort to control his rage and said,

"You know I didn't 'run out' on her. I had multiple death threats, it

was either hide or die. It's still not safe. But whatever you say, it

won't change anything. I love Dana. She knows it, and I know she loves

me. We have a son whom we both love and that will never change.

Married or not, I'm the father of your nephew, so get over it, you're

stuck with me. And you're willing to let your pride and anger get you

and your family killed. So Dana didn't follow the life you and your

father had hoped she would. So you don't understand what we

do and what we've been fighting for over a decade. Fine. But don't

berate either of us. And for God's sake, listen."

Charlie spoke up then, "He's right Bill. I've been a part of this for

three years now. We're all in danger and it would be just stupid not

to go where it's safe. Forget about the 'who's married and who isn't'

crap. Forget about the past, man. This is no joke."

Suddnely the door opened and all the children tumbled into the room.

Mulder was looking down in pained amusement. Without a word, they

scattered and William ran upstairs behind his cousins. He wondered if

his uncle Bill would come to Roswell in December. It was one of the

few safe places, but he didn't believe in aliens. Well, he woudl soon

enough but it would be too late. William curled up in his sleeping

bag, but was still awake when his parents came in the room

later. Everyone was troubled, he knew, but they had done all they

could.

He felt safe with his parents in the room, but somewhere, in the back

of his mind, he wondered how safe they really were. Were they being

watched? If so by who? He felt a prickle on the back of his neck and

his hand closed tighter around his phone gun under his pillow. Sleep

was a long time coming.

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For the next few weeks, William and his parents travelled all over the

world, from London to Paris, to South Africa to Bejing and Sydney,

Australia, meeting up with various Aegis groups, making sure

everything was in place. Everyone was as alert as could be expected,

and after six weeks of solid travelling, they headed back to America.

They had been forced to postpone the excursion to Area 51 to meet with

Morris Fletcher, a governement worker within the compound who

knew Mulder and Scully.

There had been a message that there were problems, so they had left

for the world trip with plans to stop by Nevada on the way home to

Roswell. Mulder and Scully were interested in knowing how prepared

Area 51 would be with the Aurora II planes. Area 51 was still in

control of vestigial Syndicate powers, but Morris Fletcher had joined

Aegis a few years back and was thier principal contact on the base.

William had the distinct impression that his parents weren't too fond

of Morris. As for himself, he had never met the man, though he

had seen a picture on one of the X-Files his parents had copied.

They arrived in Rachel, Nevada, and checked into the motel. They would

drive out to Groom Lake later that night, probably along with several

other UFO watchers in town. In the meantime though, they stopped in

for a burger at the famous Little Ale E Inn diner. As they ate, Mulder

told William the stories of Area 51, from the Roswell crash to the

reverse engineering of captured alien spacecraft, resulting in the

Aurora and Aurora II spyplanes. As night fell, they returned to the

motel and Scully made sure William had a sweatshirt on under his

jacket, and they headed out to the lookout hill. One could no longer

see the base itself aftet the government annexed the surrounding hills

to keep trespassers away, but on a good night, an observer could still

see the strange lights in the sky of the experimental aircraft. Mulder

bypasssed the road leading up to the popular public hangout and

continued on off the road to another hill some ways away from the

gathered crowd.

They got out of the car to wait for Morris. William crawled up onto

the still-warm hood of the car with his father. Scully preferred to

keep an eye open for any approaching vehicles. It was a beautiful

night and William could never remember being so awestruck at the veiw.

The sun had just set and several rays of pink, gold, purple and orange

still streaked the distant horizon. The desert was slowly turning from

gold to blue as the shadows of the hills elongated. The stars were

clear jewels and a cool breeze with a chill swept over the area. It

was beautiful beyond words.

A few minutes later some lights appeared in the sky, manuvering over

the dry lake bed beyond the hills. William was fascinated as his

father pointed out rhe new Aurora II planes, reverse engineered from

downed UFO's, and probably humanity's only real defense against attack

from the air. The only problem, Mulder explained, was that human

reflexes were rarely sufficient to operate at such high speeds and

maybe only a handful of pilots could handle the craft. Mulder went on

to tell William of the second case he and Scully had ever

investigated concerning a vanished pilot who had resurfaced with his

memory wiped after having a breakdown from flying the strange

aircraft.

It seemed like hours passed before Scully called out that she could

see a car approaching. Mulder told William to get into the car and get

down. His heart racing, William ducked down into the back seat with

his hand on his weapon. He saw that both of his parents had drawn

thier guns as well but were holding them down out of view. A white

Jeep Cherokee came swinging into view and up the hill. Both Mulder and

Scully stood tensed and ready. The door opened and a heavyset man with

curly blond hair stepped out. He stared at the two former

agents in front of him, then broke out into a grin.

"Hey, Scully. Looking lovely as ever. Still havedn't ditched this

loser huh?" he said somewhat sarcastically.

William felt his eyes narrow and wondered how mad his parents would be

if he nudged the guy with his mind and sent him sliding down the hill.

But to his suprise, he father grinned. (his mother rolled her eyes)

Mulder said to the man, "Fletcher, still as personable as ever I see.

So what's new?"

William lowered the window a little and peeked about the door to see

what was going on. The man called Morris Fletcher was talking quickly

and his father was listening while his mother kept a look out for

company.

"Basically, the whole sky's getting lively," Fletcher was saying. "The

number of unidentified craft seems to be increasing, not all of them

ours of course. Don't seem to be doing anything except buzzing around

checking things out. No landings or even any increase in contact

reports. It's simply that there are more of them. Where we'd see one

or two before, we'll see three now. Alot of sightings over our nuclear

stores and military bases. And they don't seem to be avoiding any of

the major cities anymore, though they don't stay around. It's

like they don't care who sees them anymore."

"They probably don't," said Mulder. "And why not, they figure they've

already got the planet anyway, it's just a matter of time. How's

everything here, is everyone battle ready?"

"More or less. They're ready to go at a moment's notice. It's going to

be a real interesting Christmas this year." said Morris, for the first

time his jaunty demeanor dropping. Mulder went on to ask him about

whether or not he and his family were coming to Roswell. They seemed

to be moving off into boring subjects and, without anything to do,

William stretched out in the back seat and gazed up at the stars

throught he back window. He didn't know when he fell asleep, but his

next concsious thought was that the car was moving and his

prents were back int he front seat talking.

"If he's right, it looks like they're invading sooner than December.

I'm going to call mom and tell her to round up everybody and come down

now." his mother was saying. She pulled out her cell phone and began

dialing.

"You're probably right." said his father. "When your done with that,

get on the line and alert Aegis. We need to go to battle ready now."

William sat up, suddenly wide awake.

"Is this it, Dad?" he asked with a tremor in his voice.

"I don't know, son." Mulder replied. "I hope not. We're not entirely

ready yet. The main stuff is in place but the details..."

He broke off as Scully cut him off. "Mulder, I can't get a signal."

"We're probably too far out, wait until we get back to Rachel, you can

call from the motel." he said, keeping his eyes on the deserted desert

road. Suddenly William felt something he had only felt once before.

The back of his neck prickled and his heart went cold, his very

entrails turning to ice water. Without warning his breathing sped up

as his mind flashed back to three years ago, when he stood in the

field by the farm, next to Bob's lifeless body, knowing both Bob and

Nancy were dead and evil creatures responsible for it were

in the house looking for him. He remembered his frantic flight from

the farm, hiding out, the darkess of that night...

Danger. Evil and danger were nearby!

Scully heard him and swung around. "Wil? Wil what's wrong?"

He could barely speak, "Mom, Dad, look out!"

Suddenly, a blinding light flashed from above engulfing the car.

William cried out and tried to duck down behind the seat. As he did,

his eyes looked out of the back window and, to his horror, he saw a

UFO right above them. This was no Aurora plane, no human hands had

made this vehicle. And he knew, without being told, that they were

there for him. Scully reached behind the seat trying to

grab a hold of him but suddenly everything stopped.

Time ceased to exist, there was only stillness and the light. William

felt himself paralyzed, unable to move. He tried to call to his

parents but he couldn't move his jaw. The only thing that seemed to

work were his eyelids. He became aware of someone outside the car,

which had rolled to a stop. There were many of them, short and

indistinct.

_No! No! Go away!_ his mind screamed. He lashed out with angry thoughts

and, to his surprise, he saw one of them stumble backwards. He got the

impression the being was surprised. Suddenly everything went black and

he knew no more.


	6. Chapter 6

The Final Stand Chapter 6

William had no idea how long he was unconsious, since time seemed to

have stopped. He wasn't even too sure if he was lying down, upright or

upside down. He became aware of himself slowly, as if waking from a

deep sleep. He felt a strange pressure on his back and realized he was

lying down on what felt like a metal table, but it had a strange give

to it, a little like rubber, though it was cold like metal and smooth.

He was still wearing his clothes, though his shoes and jacket had been

removed for some reason. He tried to move a hand to his face, and it

was then that he realized he couldn't move, that he was

totally paralyzed.

Suddenly he remembered why and struggled to sit up. He couldn't. He

opened his eyes, which seemed to be working, and figured that all of

his voluntary muscles were immobilized, though he could breathe

without difficulty. He could barely see, the room was dark. The air

felt wrong, somehow, almost artificial, as if it had been recycled

repeatedly and had no odor or taste. He could hear or feel

the faint hum of machinery but not like any machinery he had ever

heard before, the pitch was all wrong too. He became aware of

whisperings around him and he became afraid. Where was he? And for

God's sake where were his parents? He tried to call for them but

nothing came out. He forced himself to relax and reached out with his

mind. He could feel them, both of them, not far away but

there were barriers, as if they were in another room. But he could

also feel others, a strange alien presence.

Suddenly the lights came on, blinding him. He squeezed his eyes shut

then cracked them open, afraid of what he would see. Sure enough, a

being came into view.

Oh God in heaven, it was horrible! It was horrible! The black eyes

were like pools of tar, bottomless, they didn't even reflect the

light. The nose was two holes and the mouth a slit, like a gill

instead of an orifice. He couldn't see any ears and the thing was

hairless, with sickly skin that was more white than grey, like a

blighted plant.

William would have screamed if he could, but he was frozen, his entire

body locked up. Instead, he let out a mental scream, and apparently

the being heard it because it stumbled backwards. It showed no

expression on its face, but William could feel that it was surprised.

It hadn't seemed to be expecting to hear a human mind. Another being

then came into view and William could hear the two communicating.

_It is the one. This is it._ said being number one.

_It is but an offspring, a juevenile. It cannot be as dangerous as they_

_say. The parents seemed to have caused more trouble then this one._

replied being number two.

_Did you not hear it?_ countered number one. _You heard it scream. You_

_heard its words when we came to collect it. It can speak as we do. It_

_is unholy proof, it must be destroyed immediatly._

Destroyed? HIM? William felt his blood run even colder than it had

been. He knew they meant to kill him. And what about his Mom and Dad?

'What the hell are you THINGS talking about?' William raged at them.

The two greys turned around and regarded him. The second one spoke,

'We are merely discussing about what an interesting specimen you are.

Do not be afraid, we mean you no harm.'

William noticed right away that somehow the communication was

different. When they spoke directly to him it was as if he didn't have

to use his own abilities to hear them, but when they spoke to each

other, it seemed to be on a different channel of mental frequency,

though he could hear it all the same. Then he had an idea. His father

had often told him of abductees who said the alien communicated

telepathically, even though many of them were not telepathic

humans. If his grandfather was right, then the human brain was fully

capable of mental abilities such as telepathy and telekenisis, but

only the limited blood flow kept it dormant. The aliens seemed to

activate that part of the brain so they could speak to humans, but

deactivated it when they wanted to speak amongst themselves. It was

like speaking to the enemy on one channel of a walkie talkie, but to

thier friends on another channel. They didn't seem to realize that

William could hear all channels, because, he realized, no human

before him ever could. He wondered if Gibson could.

But there was something else. The creatures had lied to him. He knew

damn well they were plotting to kill him, then turned around and told

him something else. They didn't want him to be trouble. How much

trouble could he be, he wondered?

_'You liar,'_ he replied coldly, _'I heard you, you want to kill me!'_

Now the creatures seemed alarmed.

_It heard us!_ said number two, _but that is not possible! These_

_creatures cannot speak as we do, it was ensured that they could not._

_Now do you understand?_ said number one, _do you realize what could_

_happen if this were reported?_

_But, it is such an amazing discovery, a speaking adama, it should be_

_studied._ said number two.

_Are you a fool?_ number one asked stiffly, _as long as it lives it is_

_proof of the experiment, and this one speaks. There are some who might_

_not care about the DNA base pairs, if it speaks it will be thought of_

_as sentient. We will be held accountable for this._

_'You're already in trouble, buttmunch'_ said William in anger.

_'Sentient? Where I come from you're sentient if you're self aware and_

_can reason. You know damn well we are a sentient race. You screwed_

_around with my race, and that's against the law. That's why you want_

_us all dead, isn't it. If someone else finds out about you boys_

_playing with our genetics, there'll be hell to pay, right? What right_

_do you have to decide who deserves to live and who doesn't?_

_You have no business here!'_

_We most certainly do, adama juevenile_, said number one rather smugly,

_You are not members of the sentient race, your DNA proves that. I_

_don't expect you to understand of course. And this planet does belong_

_to us, your race is only here due to our graces. We have decided you_

_are pests, and we will exterminate you as we see fit. You have no_

_rights, you are an inferior species, you were created as such. Now be_

_silent._

William had never felt such rage and anger as he now felt. He had been

raised to believe in Christian morals of forgiveness and patience and

trust in God. But now, as the being's arrogant and cold proclaimation

sounded in his ears, the only thing he knew was hate and anger at this

creature. He could not see that they were superior in soul, if they

even had one, only in technology. Take away the technology and humans

were far more superior. If he weren't paralyzed, he knew that one

strike from his fist, even a child such as he, could and would

be fatal to these things.

Scenes flashed through William's mind, Bob and Nancy at the kitchen

table on the farm, Bob lying dead in the field, Nancy on the kitchen

floor, his mother and father's years of turmoil and hardships trying

to fight the future, his sister Emily, his aunts Melissa and Samantha,

his grandfather and grandma Tina, and how many others, all dead

because of these things? How many more? A mental roar rose up from his

guts and burst forth in a blast of mental force. The first being was

hurled by an unseen force straight into the wall. It crumpled

on the floor and William knew it was dead.

Without knowing why, he immediatly regretted it. He had just killed

another living creature! And one with a mind and intelligence. Even

though these beings were plotting the demise of his own people,

William felt instant remorse. He hadn't meant to kill the creature,

even if it deserved it. It was like hitting a dog with a car. But he

tried to force it down. These beings didn't see him in the same light.

To him, he was just a talking dog or cat. Maybe not even that.

The second being was startled and alarmed.

A red light flashed and pain shot through William. He screamed in

agony and the light released him.

_'Mom, Dad, where are you? Help me..'_ he called out.

The second being was furious, _You killed him you brutal beast! He was_

_right, you will be destroyed, and your parents along with you._

_'You're the brutal beast,'_ William mentally panted, out of breath,

_'You paralyze me and my parents and trap us here, tell me you're going_

_to destroy me and everything I love because you think it's ok to do it_

_as long as the species in question doesn't have six based DNA, but you_

_KNOW we're a sentient race, what's more we're faster learners than_

_you. You screwed with us and you know you weren't supposed to. We're_

_proof and you're going to destroy us to cover your own ass, if you_

_have one. And you're cowards. I can't fight you back, but_

_if you didn't restain me, I'd easily beat you..'_

_Of course you're stronger, and of course you're restrained. It would_

_be foolish not to restrain you. You were all bred for strength, your_

_race was needed in the mines. Enough talk..._the being made a move

towards something William couldn't see.

_'We are not your slaves! That planet's ours! YOU LEFT US THERE! You_

_left us! So we made it on our own and we did well. It's not yours_

_anymore, it never was, it belonged to the raptor race first, then to_

_the Atleanteans, now to us. You never belonged here!'_ William raged.

_How could you know a history your race has never witnessed? All was_

_erased. _ The being stopped, confused.

_'I saw it, I saw it all,'_ said William.

_Not possible, it was not recorded. You race had not even existed and_

_they were never told. You could not have seen it._ the being said.

_'I could see into the past,'_ said William, _'Many humans can do this if_

_they know how. Time is only a dimension, it can be pierced and looked_

_at.'_

Now the being was terribly alarmed! _You lie, this is not possible. No_

_being can do this with the mind alone. Special equipment is needed._

_How could you have knowledge of things you cannot possibly_

_understand?_

_'You are so sure we're just dumb animals, aren't you,'_ William said

sarcastically, _'What if you're wrong? But you know that don't you? You_

_knew how strong we could be, that's why you limited our brains, right?_

_So we COULDN'T talk and tell your secrets. So we COULDN'T see other_

_dimensions. So we COULDN'T use our minds as I just did and fight_

_back?'_

_ENOUGH!_ said the alien, sounding frightened, maybe for the first time

since encountering a human. _You are an abomination, and will be_

_destroyed at once, and your parents so they may never procreate_

_another like you!_

The alien moved again towards whatever he had been moving too and

William steeled himself, sure that this was it, he was about to die.

He realized he wasn't all that scared. Mostly he was sad. There was so

much he wanted to do. For some ungodly reason, he regretted never

learning to play music. Why this was coming up now was beyond him, but

he remembered watching the bands at the county fairs back in Midville,

playing drums, banjos, dulcimers, harmonicas and violins. He had

always loved music, and he wondered if humans were the only

ones who made music. No, whales do, and dolphins. Was music only an

Earthly thing? Would there be any future genereations or species who

would hear thier music? If they all died, only the Voyager spacecraft,

floating somewhere beyond the solar system, sould carry any remains of

human music and whale music. What instrument would he have learned?

The violin? The piano? The bagpipes? Yeah, bagpipes. His mother would

never have let him, he thought with a smile.

_'Well,'_ he thought sadly, _'At least I took one of them with me. God_

_help everyone else on Earth. I hope they give them a good hell of a_

_fight.'_ And he relaxed back, waiting for the first shot of pain or

darkness that would signify his death.

It never came. Suddenly a strobe light went off and some sound started

ringing. The being stopped and looked around startled. Then it rushed

towards William, intending to kill him, when the door in the far wll

opened and another being came in, followed by several other beings.

William stared. This was no grey alien! It was a little taller than an

average human, and looked more human than the greys. It's skin was

like human skin, with a pale sort of color, but seemed to have a

greenish cast to it, as if it's blood was green. William would have

laughed at the irony of bad Hollywood B movies being right about any

alien having green blood if he hadn't been so scared, or paralyzed.

The new creatures also had amazing eyes, not black like

the greys, but not entierly like humans either. William remembered one

of his dad's movies, Dune, where the people had blue glowing eyes with

blue where the whites should have been. These creatures had eyes like

that only they were green, with very large pupils, no irises. Thier

faces were more like human faces, but without any real defined

features, almost like people in old Disney cartoons. They were dressed

in iridescent skinsuits and they didn't seem to be in a good mood.

Cease at once, said the lead being, with yet a different mind

frequency than the greys, but William could hear it.

_What business have you here? You have boarded us without provocation._

_This is a research vessel, you will answer to the Council for this!_

the grey alien said with pompous indignation.

Keep your lies to yourself, we are hear to place every one of you

under arrest. said the green-eyed being to the grey. We are

investigating what looks like a gross violation of the species

contamintation law. You are to desist at once and release

this...whatever this is, into our custody.

William wasn't sure this new creture would do any better by him in the

long run, since he was no doubt in for a barrage of experimentation,

but for now, it didn't seem to want to kill him as the greys did. And

he had to find his parents. Maybe they would let him.

'Please Sir," said William, 'Please help me, he was about to kill me!

He says I'm proof of species tampering, My race calls themselves

human. I called for help, they mean to destroy us all.'

The green-eyed being whirled around, and William could see surprise

registered on it's face in expression, similar to humans. They all

turned to face him and William could sense panic in the grey.

It speaks! said the green-eyed being, You were perfoming

experimentation on a speaking being!? This is revolting! How dare you?

What is this creature?

_BE SILENT!_ yelled the grey to William, and turned to the green-eyed

being, _Of course, we do no such thing! This species does not speak at_

_all. This one is merely an anomoly. It is being studied as a_

_scientific specimen and will be released..._

_'YOU LIAR!_' yelled William,_ 'The only reason my species doen't 'speak'_

_as you do is because you engineered our brains so we CAN'T. But we_

_could. And I can, and I'm not the only one. Several others can. I have_

_a friend who can. But we can speak to each other using sounds, and we_

_are not animals! We've developed vehicles and spacecraft that have_

_taken us to our moon! You're here to wipe us all out! You were about_

_to destroy me!'_

_IT LIES!_ yelled the grey.

SILENCE! said the green-eyed being, annoyed. It is not for me to

decide, it is for the Council. And I must say, this creature certainly

seems to be the object of what it says it is, or is that death serum

you hold meant for another creature?

William noticed that the grey was holding an object he didn't

recognize. It seemed embarrassed at having forgotten it held it.

Either way, my orders are to place you under arrest. A distress call

was recieved by an unknown species in the vicintiy of this solar

system saying its race was under attack and about to be anhilated. It

certainly looks that way. Now release this creature! Green-Eyes seemed

to have reached then end of its patience.

Sighing, the grey pushed a button and William felt himself regain

control of his muscles. Some other Green-Eyes took the grey out of the

room.

It called back to the Green-Eyes, _Beware! It is dangerous and so are_

_it's kind. You would do well to restrain it!_

The Green-Eyes ignored the grey as they led it away. The lead

Green-Eyes came up to William as he sat up, but stayed well out of

reach.

"Please, Sir,' said William. "I am only a juevenile of my species. My

parents are here somewhere, I can sense them. Please can I go to

them?'

William saw something that looked like compassion flicker in the

creature's eyes, before it answered In a moment. Are you the one who

sent the call?

'Yes, I am. Am I in trouble?' asked William.

We shall see. Come, if there are more of your kind on this craft we

shall locate them. The being turned and walked off. William jumped

down from the table and followed.

Fox Mulder was furious. He couldn't move, he couldn't talk. And worse,

he had absolutely no idea where his son was. He could hear Scully

breathing not far away, and he knew what her breathing sounded like.

But they seemed to be the ony ones in the room. He knew she was awake

and they were able to slowly communicate by snorting morse code. She

didn't know where William was either and she was scared to death.

Why in God's name did he drag his family around out in the open? Why

hadn't he left them in Roswell where it was safe and gone alone?

Because he knew Scully never would have stayed behind. She always

hated it when he took off without her and she hated his "I was just

trying to protect you" explanations even worse.

Scully was at a loss. Flashes of her previous abductions came back,

even though those had been humans. This was worse. And where was her

baby, her son? What were they doing to him? Why wasn't he with them?

She had lost Emily, and she had been forced to give up William, she

was damned if she was going to lose him to these monsters. Mulder,

likewise was thinking much the same thing. He had lost his entire

family to these things, he was not going to loose his kid or

Scully. He'd give a kidney or something just for the chance to get to

these monsters and do to them like they planned to do to all of

humanity.

Suddenly the lights fickered, then began to strobe in a sort of alarm.

What the hell was happeneing? Where was everybody? Were they about to

die? Mulder strained to reach out to Scully but he just couldn't move.

He wished he could at least touch her. It wasn't fair. He wanted to

talk to her, to tell her how much he loved her, how he had loved her

from the moment she had walked into his office nearly twenty years

ago. God damn! Had it been that long ago? It didn't seem so. He

realized how much they had done, how much they had lived in those

years that followed. Was it all about to end right now? Had he ever

really told her what he felt for her and thier son? He felt a tear

fall from his eye and he closed them, not wanting to see what happened

next.

Sure enough, he heard a door open. Against his better judgement, he

opened his eyes. If he had had control of his jaw, he was sure it

would have been on the floor. A group of beings came in, but they

weren't greys! They looked more like humans, but with a weird greenish

cast to thier skin and Dune-eyes that were green instead of blue. He

thought he heard Scully wimper and he fought to turn his head. Were

they hurting her?

One of the creatures came and stood beside him, looking at him

pointedly. It seemed confused, like it was trying to talk to him but

couldn't get through. Another one came up and looked pointedly at him.

Mulder wished he could do something other than blink. This seemed to

go on forever until finally, one of the beings did something and

suddenly Mulder could move. He jumped up off the table and backed away

from the beings. They backed away quickly as well, pointing strange

objects at him.

"Mulder!" he heard Scully call, She ran over to him and he pulled her

into a tight hug, relieved that she seemed to be ok. He could feel her

shaking. The beings looked on with interest, they didn't seem to

understand what was going on.

Mulder looked at the nearest one and asked, "Where's our son? Our

child, where is he?"

The beings seemed a little taken aback by the noises the two humans

were making. They backed away, but the one in the lead came forward.

He seemed to realize that the two species communicated differently, so

they had to be cautious. He could tell the two humans were frightened

and angry. According to reports coming in from the rest of the craft,

he figured they had a right to be. Hed didn't know what the strange

creatures' noises meant, but he figued they were asking about thier

offspring which has been found in another part of the craft. Perhaps

the best thing to do would be to gather all of the strange

creatures together, it might calm them.

The Green-Eyes began leaving one by one.

"Wait a minute!," yelled Scully, "Where's our son? Tell us where he

is!"

"I don't think they can, Scully." said Mulder. "They don't seem to

have the greys' ability co talk with us."

Fianlly only the leader was left, he turned to walk out, then looked

over his shoulder. He seemed to want them to follow him.

"I think we better follow him." said Mulder.

"I don't know, what if they're leading us to be executed?" replied

Scully.

"Well, we can't find Wil in here. And if they're going to kill us they

will. Let's go and keep a lookout for him, I don't know how we'll get

out of this but in here we're sitting ducks." Mulder shrugged.

Scully nodded and they followed the Green-Eyes out of the room.

As they followed the being, Scully couldn't help but notice the

strange design of the alien craft they were in. She kept expecting to

wake up and find they had been watching some scifi movie and this was

all a dream. But she knew it wasn't. What she wouldn't give to examine

the strange metal of the walls and the technology! The scientist in

her was thrilled. Then the mother instinct was yelling loud and clear

for her son. As they rounded a corner, they saw another

group of Green-Eyes, and with them was William!

Forgetting about any weapons these things had, she flew forward

towards him, Mulder right behind her.

"Mom! Dad!" William yelped in joy and ran to his parents. Scully

scooped him up and held him tight. Mulder threw his arms around both

of them. All three of them were crying, relieved to see the others

alive. Mulder took his son into his own arms as Scully checked him

out.

"Are you OK? Did they hurt you?" she asked.

"No, Mom, I'm fine really. I've been talking to them. The ones with

the green eyes are here to arrest the greys for species tampering. I

don't know what they want to do with us but all I know is right now

they don't want to kill us." said William.

"You can talk to them?" asked Mulder.

William nodded and explained what had happened. Scully shivered as she

listened to him talk about killing a grey with his mind and nearly

seconds away from being killed himself. What were the odds of that

happening? Would these new green-eyed aliens help them keep the greys

from wiping them out? Mostly it seemed to her that they were only

interested in the fact that the greys might have broken a law, not so

much about the humans themselves.

William turned to look at one of the leaders and they stared at each

other for a while. Then William turned back to them.

"I told him you two can't talk the way I can. He seems confused by the

whole thing. He wants us to follow him to his craft, this one's being

confiscated or something. They want us to testify what we know about

what's been done to our race." William paused, then said, "I don't

think he was giving us a choice."

"Ask him what they plan to do with us when they're finished." said

Mulder.

William turned and regarded the Green-Eyes again for a while, then

told his parents, "I convinced him to send us back to Earth. I don't

know how they're going to do it. He says they have absolutely no

knowledge of us or our civilization, so they don't want to just fly

down and drop us off. He says there's rules, kinda like the Prime

Directive on Star Trek. You know, not messing with a developing

primative culture. He seems shocked that we don't have anything better

than the space shuttle. They have to rely on the greys'

information on us for now and he says the greys are being silent."

"So basically we don't know WHEN they're going to send us home," said

Scully.

"Well, at least he's going to, he said we wouldn't be killed." said

William.

"Yeah," mumbled Mulder, "Unless the greys convince him otherwise.

There's no garuntee they won't decide the greys have every right to do

with us as they like."

William and Scully didn't answer him. The Green-Eyes turned and they

followed him. They wondered amongst themselves how they were going to

transfer craft. These creatures and the greys seemed to be oxygen

breathing and had the same tolerance to atmospheric pressure, so

pressumably they had ways of trasferring without anyone getting

killed, but they were still nervous.

Finally, they came to what looked like a regular wall. A few of the

Green-Eyes walked up to it, then walked right though.

"Cool!" said William.

"I don't know about that." said Scully. "We don't know it's safe for

us."

The lead Green-Eyes stared at William, who then turned and said, "He

says it's safe. He says to go."

Sighing, Mulder took his son's hand, then Scully's. Gritting his

teeth, hoping he wasn't getting them all killed, he stepped through

the wall. There was a wonderful feeling, like nerve stimulating

tingles all over them, and a rainbow of light danced in front of thier

eyes. Suddenly it was over and they were on the other side.

They were definately in a new craft. Everything was tinted green in

this place, the floors and the wall. Like the other craft, the air was

stale, recycled and this craft was colder. The lights were beautiful,

however, seemingly white, but with a strange halo of rainbow around

them. Also, it felt as if the gravity were not quite right, as if a

good jump off the goround would send one stright through the ceiling.

Mulder had once tried out the "Moonwalk" machine at NASA and it felt

like that, like walking on the moon but with not as much bounce.

Walking seemed to be as normal as before, if a little unsteady. The

Green-Eyes leader led them down the hall, and, as they passed a

window, William let out an audible yelp of disbelief.

"Dad! Look!" he pointed.

Mulder and Scully froze in awe. Outside of the window was the

blackness of space and the Earth spinning on its axis. The image was

too clear, to perfect to be a video or even a very high resolution

picture. William wanted to reach out and touch the window but Scully

frantically pulled him back, reminding him that they had gone through

a wall by touching it. They watched as North America spun into veiw,

and Mulder looked for Nevada, and Area 51, wondering if the car

was still down there somewhere. He could see New Mexcio and roughly

where their house was. It was amazing!

The Green-Eyes let them look, seemingly amused by thier reaction.

Finally, they tore themselves away and followed the alien down the

hall. He led them to a room and motioned them inside. He loked at

William for a long moment, then turned to leave, the door closing

behind them.

William turned back to his parents and said, "He says we'll stay here

for the time being, until he makes some, I guess phone calls or

something. He says they're looking through the greys' database to see

what we eat, since they can't seem order up a pizza up here." His

parents smiled forcefully, but didn't laugh.

"Did he say how long?" asked Scully. William shook his head.

Sighing, they looked around. There seemed to be furniture in the room

but unlike andy they had ever seen before. There were some strange

protrusions from the wall that seemed to be like bean bag chairs, that

were big enough to lie down in or sit up in. Beyond that, the room was

quite bare. Scully cautiously examined one of the bean bag things,

then sat on it.

"Hmm, these are kind of comfortable." she said.

Mulder and William sat down on the other ones.

'Well, now what?" asked William.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The next few hours were very interesting, for both the family of three

humans and the aliens whose craft they were on. It seemed that they

had managed to get some information from the greys and were able to

adapt the room for the humans. The first thing they needed was a

bathroom. After communicting this to a Green-Eyes who periodically

checked in on them, William tried not to blush as he described to the

alien what they needed and why. Then food became a problem.

Translating for his mother, who relied on her doctor skills and

knowledge, he told the aliens the basics of human nutrition and what

they managed to synthesize had all the calories and vitamins they

needed, but looked suspiciously like cold snot. William chose to

announce this description right as his mother put some in her mouth.

She gagged and barely swallowed it, then informed her son that if

they ever got out of this it wouldn't matter, because he was grounded

for life for saying that.

William tried not to taste it as he forced himself to swallow it all

in three gulps, like his father. They passed the time playing word

games, telling stories, even singing songs, but the boredom was hard

to manage. Eventually some of the Green-Eyes came in to question them.

William translated for his parents and between the three of them,

managed to describe the course of human history with the greys. The

Green-Eyes made it clear that they were not scientists or researchers

interested in the evolution of a new species, that thier job was to

investigate possible wrongdoing on the greys' part. They, like

the greys, were an offspring race of the founding aliens who had

spread thier DNA throught he galaxy, and like the greys, believed that

all worthwhile life came only from that race.

Since the founders had been a six based DNA race, it was assumed that

all thier offspring races would also have six base pairs. The fact

that the humans had four seemed to be proof enough that the humans

were not even considered worthwhile, despite William's insitance that

humans were descendants of the founders, he had seen it in his vision.

The Green-Eyes accpeted that some mutations could have led to a four

base pair from six on Earth, but they did not accept William's

explanation of visions from the past. It was incredible,

but it seemed that no species of the known founders' offspring had the

ability to see into the past or future. However, they were intrigued

by William's abilities and had him perform several strange tests, like

having him control the direction of several floating, glowing balls.

He listened to speaking images of several strange looking beings and

repeated what they said back to the Green-Eyes. With his parents

watching anxiously, one being examined him with a clear rod with a

light on the tip, touching it to various muscle groups and places on

his head and on his tongue. But mostly they questioned him about

what they knew of the greys.

William was complaining to his parents when they were alone about the

absurdity of the whole situation. "It's crazy. Can't they SEE that we

are a sentient race, with a developing culture and a right to live on

our own planet? We have spacecraft of our own! OK, so it doesn't go

beyond the moon, but so what, it's a start. They had to start

somewhere didn't they? Just because we have four based DNA, not six,

they say we're nothing more than parameciums!"

"I think it's paramecia, isn't it Scully?" quipped Mulder.

Scully rolled her eyes, "Well think of it like this, think of how

during the days of slavery black people weren't considered human

because of the color of thier skin. During the holocaust Jews weren't

considered human because of thier religion and race. Native Americans

were called savage barbarians because they didn't have the same

clothes and housing and weapons as the white settlers. It's called

'descrimination' and there's never any reason behind it. When

you're born and raised believing something, even if it's ludicrous,

it's hard to change, even with reason."

The door slid open then and they jumped to thier feet as the leader

Green-Eyes came in and told William that the Council of races had

enough evidence to try the greys on species tampering. William and his

parents were to speak for the human race at the trial. His parents

were stunned and Mulder made it clear they couldn't go too far. By the

time they got home over hundreds of years would have passed on Earth.

The Green-Eyes assured him they would not have to go anywhere, their

testimony would take place on the craft and be broadcast to the

waiting Council. William shivered as he clutched his mother, never

once dreaming he would have to be a spokesman for the entire human

race at the age of eleven.

For her part, neither had Dana Scully. She hugged him close, wanting

to spare him from all this, but it ws either testify or let everything

they love be destroyed. And somehow she doubted it would be anything

like a court back home. Reluctantly, they followed the leader down

several winding halls to a strange room with a circle in the middle.

He instructed them to step in the middle and they did, Mulder leading.

William stood between his parents and held thier hands.

Suddenly, what appeared to be a shimmering curtain surrounded them.

When it cleared, all three were awestruck at finding themselves in

another room entirely! The small room had vanished and they now stood

on the floor of a huge hall with several balcony type structures, each

containing a strange looking creature. William recognized a few of

them from the tests he had taken and he wondered how the hell they had

gotten here. There was a shimmer here and there and he heard his

father speak up.

"It's not really here, it's like a hologram or a VR game. We're still

in the room on the ship, it's like VR phone conferencing." William

turned and saw his father had stuck a hand through the circle edge and

it vanished as if being thrust through a curtain. He saw his mother

visably relax, for a moment. Then he saw next to them in another

circle, three greys looking at them. A voice began to boom and William

translated for his parents who could not hear it.

**"Representatives of the race of Elohim. You have been brought before**

**the Council to answer to the charges of your race having violated the**

**fourth mandate of the galactic code. That is, 'All sentient and**

**honorable species, being the progeny of the venerable Founders, the**

**noble ones who brought life to all the galaxy, shall be equal in the**

**eyes of thier bretheren, subject to no opression by thier bretheren,**

**subject to no experimentation, nor species altering by their**

**bretheren, shall lay claim to no other planet occupied by**

**thier bretheren without express consent witnessed by this Council, and**

**that all species of the Founders shall be left in peace, thier**

**civilization untouched. Likewise, no bretheren species shall influence**

**or interfere with the development of a primative bretheren species.'**

**Race of the Elohim, there have been charges that you have repeatedly**

**journeyed to the third planet of the qui'yon sector, 4th divesion,**

**second cluster, where a race of primative life forms had evolved, and**

**that you have altered thier civilization, altered thier**

**bodies, and then attempted to destroy the entire species by genocide,**

**not once but three times, that you have succeeded in destroying a**

**primative reptilian race on this planet, destroyed a previous**

**civilization, and now threaten to destroy the present civilization to**

**destroy evidence of your tampering and so that you might claim the**

**mineral rich planet. How do you answer?"**

The tallest grey answered, _Honorable bretheren, we are not guilty of_

_these charges._

William clenched his fists to shout back but Mulder clamped a hand on

his shoulder. William understood, shouting out of turn could not be

good for thier case. He forced himself to stay silent. The voice was

continuing.

**"The Council will now hear the explination of the Elohim in this**

**matter."**

The tallest grey alien stepped forward again and began to speak.

_Esteemed bretheren and fellow races of the Founders, we, the Elohim,_

_are well aware of the Galactic law and honor it as you do. It is not_

_within us to cause harm to a fellow species of the Founders. However,_

_there is no law concerning the expansion of colonization to ensure the_

_health and well-being of one's own race. We, like several of you, are_

_too, colonists. For several units now, we have searched local star_

_systems for planets that may be of some use to us for raw materials_

_and colonization. Upon arriving at the third planet of the sector_

_in question, we saw that it was ripe with the materials we needed, and_

_yes, it did support life. However, let me say right now, this life is_

_NOT life created by the Founders! Analysis of the DNA showed only four_

_DNA base pairs in all life on this planet. My esteemed bretheren, it_

_is well known that the Founders themselves had six DNA base pairs, as_

_do all of thier offspring. These lifeforms were vicious creatures,_

_with no mind and limited intelligence, who existed only to eat. While_

_we tried several methods of deterring these lifeforms from attacking_

_our settlements, nothing worked and we did eventually plan to colonize_

_the planet._

_After much debate, we decided to leave the planet and return at a_

_later time to see if conditions had improved Several units later we_

_again sought out the planet and saw that the reptiles had perished,_

_but that a new species had arisen, a species that walked upright as we_

_do, but again were only a four base pair species and had very limited_

_intelligence, if any, and no culture or tools at all. They were pack_

_hunters, eating raw meat, and using no tools, they wee not sentient._

_However, we were relunctant to leave again, to we set about early_

_colonization. We concluded that the species on the planet was not a_

_Founder offspring race, but could still be useful in mining_

_operations._

_We crossed the creature with some of our own DNA to give it some_

_intelligence and other traits, but no more. It made a very good work_

_animal, diging in the mines and clearing land for our establishments._

_However, many in our group wondered on the purity of our race. There_

_were several arguments, from many factions. Some argued that the_

_species we had created evolved to quickly, that soon they would be_

_capable of civilization of thier own, that they would rise_

_up and destroy us. Others argued they should never have been created_

_in the first place, that to cross a Founder species with a random_

_species was an abomination, others felt sympathy for them and stated_

_they should be left on the planet to thier own devices. In the end, we_

_decided that they should never had been created, that the best course_

_of action was to end the horrific experiment and cleanse the planet._

_We directed high powered rays at the polar caps, flooding the planet_

_and destroying the species, or so we thought. Again we left and_

_returned several units later to discover the creatures we had named_

_the adama had not perished, but had multiplied and now covered the_

_entire planet._

_Naturally colonization would have to be put on hold, so we contacted_

_several of the leaders of the race and began negotiating plans to_

_colonize with the permission of the adama. However, they betrayed us!_

_It became known to us that several attempts to further cross our race_

_with thiers were under way. This further experimentaion and gene_

_crossing was thier fault! Not only that, we became aware of a global_

_plot to destroy our race on sight and destroy any colonies we might_

_set up in peace, led by the three adama you see standing_

_before you! Yes, bretheren, these three conspired in the death of the_

_leaders we had come to agreements with, then proceeded to take over_

_control and plan for war against us, a peaceful colonizing force._

_We had planned on studying the race we had created, to see if the_

_influence of DNA from a Founder race could bring order and staility to_

_savages, who seem to gow at an exponential rate. They already have_

_primative space vehicles. How soon before they devlop star drives and_

_then make war on all of us? Let me repeat, these creatures are not_

_offspring of the Founders, thier DNA proves it. They are a vicious,_

_bloodthirsty race with limited intelligence and none of the_

_abilites we possess, such as the ability to speak as we do. They make_

_war on each other over bits of land and foolish beliefs in imaginary_

_forces that cannot be seen or tested to prove existence. Only in this_

_jeuvenile you see before you is there an anomoly, the ability to speak_

_as we do. We had been studying the creature when we were beset upon_

_and arrested._

_My bretheren, perhaps we, the Elohim, are guilty of irresponsibility_

_with concern to innappropriate tampering of a random species, and_

_perhaps the decision to exterminate them in the past was faulty, but_

_there is no doubt now. They are dangerous and an abomination. They_

_should not exist, and we should not have created them. They are not_

_offspring of the Founders, so they are not a sentient race recognized_

_by this Council. Our race will accpet whatever fine is decided for our_

_misconduct with a random species, however, you must see that_

_they must be exterminated. But even if this council does not agree_

_with extermination, know that we do not exterminate on a whim either._

_They are a danger to not only our race, but to all of you. And as the_

_third planet is within the teritory of the Elohim, it is our right to_

_colonize the plantes we own as we see fit. I am finished._

The grey alien stepped back and a buzz went up around the hall. Mulder

was furious at the arrogance of the creature, assuming it was ok to

destroy and entire species of lifeforms based on the nature of it's

DNA. But what was worse, the war he had fought all his life against

these creatures would not be over with him, now it was up to his son,

still a child, to fix it. He and Scully would help him as much as they

could, but it would depend on how well William could communicate and

reason with these aliens so different from them. He stepped forward

and hugged his son. Scully stepped forward and gave William

a quick kiss. William closed his eyes and thought of the dream on the

beach. Despite what the greys said, he knew God wasn't imaginary, and

he hoped He would help now. He crossed himself as he had seen his

mother do, then, steeling himself, stepped forward and lifted his chin

to the aliens who would decide all of thier fates.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Final Stand Chapter 7**

William Charles Mulder had never been so scared in his entire life,

and that included the time he had fled from the super soldiers on a

slow minibike from the farm where his adoptive parents had been killed

and ended up hiding out in the dark. He knew deep down that this was

why he had been born, this was why he had been sent. It all came down

to now, and he prayed for the right words. These creatures thought

nothing more of him than a talking animal, like a talking monkey or

something. He tried to put himself into their place and speak

as best he could.

_"Hello,"_ he started. (God that sounded lame) _"My name is William and I_

_am, what the greys, um, Elohim, call an 'adama'. My race calls itself_

_'humans', although we recognized thier name for us in our early_

_writings. We called the first human 'Adam'. First of all, I want to_

_clarify some inaccuracies in the gr-Elohim's story. First of all, what_

_your brothers forgot to mention about the reptilian race was that_

_they, the Elohim, are responisble for thier demise. Yes_

_it's true. They manuvered an asteroid into a collision course with the_

_planet and it crashed, destroying all animal and plant life on the_

_planet, including the devloping reptilian species. This was senseless_

_destruction of a defenseless lifeform that was developing its own_

_civilization. Later, when they returned, they found another species,_

_ones we call mammals, beginning to evolve. Yes, they were little more_

_than animals, but they were devloping the use of very primative tools,_

_despite what th Elohim have said._

_Then, the Elohim decided they wanted a slave race, so they decided,_

_without persmission, to alter this primative species, genetically_

_limiting it so that if this species or its decedants MIGHT have_

_developed the ability to communicate as I do, it was now severed and_

_limited. Let me remind all of you, that you now only have the word of_

_the Elohim as to whether or not any life on Earth was or was not_

_decendant from your Founders. By thier own admission, they_

_tampered with a primative species, so now we'll never know for sure_

_what they might have been if they had been left alone. You don't know_

_what we were before the tampering, they never asked for your opinion_

_or sent any samples to you to be tested, they acted on thier own. Very_

_convenient, I think. But aside from all of that, when the hybrid race_

_they created started thinking for itself, forming its own_

_civilizations, the Elohim panicked._

_They wanted a subservient mule that never questioned and used its_

_brute strength to do heavy labor. Imagine thier surprise when they_

_began to think for themselves. Two great civilizations rose from that_

_species, who were called Mu and Atlantis. They developed rapidly, and_

_within a space of a few thousand of our years, they had developed_

_vehicles that used solar energy, aircraft, weaponry and knowledge._

_They were a threat to the Elohim who wanted the planet for themselves,_

_so the Elohim destroyed them in a cataclysmic flood that wiped_

_out all but a few pockets of people who manages to live on and develop_

_on thier own, evolving with the work of a few rebel Elohim who_

_continued to experiment on thier slave adama race._

_Let me stop here and point out that the actions of the Elohim up to_

_this point are not those of a 'civilized' race. It doesn't matter,_

_ultimately, WHERE life came from. Think about the millions of star_

_systems that exist, of only a fw percent of those that have planets,_

_and only a few of those can sustain life, then only a few of those_

_lifeforms will rise in a civilization, it's amazing any of us are here_

_at all, even with the Founders. Life is sacred, it should_

_be protected and fostered, not wiped out for any reason, least of all_

_how many DNA base pairs it has. That's a very bad excuse for_

_exterminating an entire species and several other species along with_

_it, not once but twice. And now they want to do it again. Right now,_

_they're planning on releasing a killer virus that will destroy all_

_humans in a horrible way, by having a new Elohim gestate inside the_

_human as a biological incubator. They have sent entities we_

_call Super Soldiers to infiltrate our society and prepare for the day_

_they invade, killing anyone who gets in thier way. And they complain_

_when some of us fight back. It's called species survival, did they_

_expect us to roll over and die for them?_

_Imagine, if you will, that some other race from another galaxy, comes_

_exploring and finds all of you, and decides you're expendable and_

_meant to be wiped out, because you only have six DNA base pairs and_

_not eight, and they only recognize life that has eight base pairs._

_Does it make you any less worthy, any less sentient, just because_

_you're different? Is your civilization worth less because you wouldn't_

_have the same DNA as those invaders? Are humans any less_

_worthy? And don't be so sure we're worthless lifeforms, unable to_

_learn or speak. You never know if sometime in the future you may need_

_us. There was a story on my planet about explorers from one continent_

_who came to colonize another and found a race of people already living_

_there. They considered the natives to be savage brutes, uncivilized_

_and worthy of oppression, because they dressed in animal furs and_

_lived in mud homes and didn't have as advanced weaponry and didn't_

_believe the same things as the settlers. However, the settlers had no_

_idea how to make food grow in this new land and would have died_

_without the help of those very savages they thought were inferior._

_Everybody, think for a moment. Is it right for the strong to oppress_

_and exterminate the weak? If that were the case, many of you would not_

_be sitting here because you would have been conquered. If everyone_

_went off and did whatever they wanted to whoever was different, there_

_would choas and war. The actions of the Elohim only show what they_

_really think of your laws, and that they would do this to one of the_

_Founder races, as long as it was never discovered that the species_

_they destroyed was really one of the Founders._

_Everybody, that's what I'm here to tell you now. Humans and all life_

_on my planet ARE offspring of the Founders. because of the type of_

_sun we have, six based DNA was unable to survive on our world until it_

_mutated into a four base. We are at the far end of the galaxy, we were_

_some of the last ones to be seeded. If the Founders were here, they'd_

_verify this. And I know this because my race has one of several_

_abilities, and that is the ability to peirce the wall of time and see_

_into the past and future. I know you think this cannot be_

_done, but my race can. Several indaviduals have had the ability, and_

_the reason none of our mental abilites are apparent is because, in_

_normal humans, they are dormant and vestigial._

_The Elohim realized early on in thier experiment that early adama_

_humans could not only speak as they do, but had other abilities they_

_didn't have, like the ability to move objects with the mind, to see_

_through time, to manipulate energy, and many others. This frightened_

_them, so they ensured the human brain would be so limited, even a few_

_anomolies like myself could never use the full range they were born_

_with. Human beings only use ten percent of thier brain,_

_the other ninety percent does not recieve enough blood flow or_

_nourishment to function at full capacity. And so, the average human_

_only has glimpses of the future in hunches, brief moments of telepathy_

_by finishing each others' sentences, and so on. This is not the fault_

_of our DNA, but tampering by the Elohim, and it's wrong. And how do I_

_know all of this? Because I looked back in time and saw it for myself._

_I know you think this is impossible but it is not, and what's more, I_

_could do it again, with some work._

_Everyone, I am not here to challenge what you believe or what you hold_

_true, or your laws. But when your laws threaten the lives of a race,_

_please stop and think. If you allow the Elohim to go unchecked, they_

_will return to my planet and destroy an entire race of lifeforms. To_

_say that we are not sentient is absurd and you all know it. If I were_

_not entient and you could not believe it, you would not have me in_

_front of you now arguing with reason. Whether you believe we are your_

_brother species or not doesn't really matter in the end,_

_you have to decide what is more important, life, in all forms, or your_

_belief that only six based DNA lifeforms have the right to live. And_

_remember, think of how you would feel if some eight based pair_

_lifeform said your civilization was worthless because you only have_

_six. What if someone told you that everything you worked so hard to_

_build will be destroyed to make way for a more worthy life form that_

_had more DNA than you?_

_Humans are, yes, a kind of volitile race, I'll admit. We feel very_

_strong connections with our family groups and our tribal groups, and_

_if one member is threatened, then the whole family feels it. It is how_

_we have survived in the past, working together to build. It sometimes_

_gets out of control, but I think reason always wins in the end. We_

_have many colorful civilizations on my planet, music, stories,_

_costumes and so much more. It shouldn't be exterminated_

_just so the Elohim can take the planet. They already have several_

_others they own, why can't they go somewhere else? Give us a chance,_

_won't you? I don't care if they are punished or not, but make them_

_leave us alone. And maybe someday, way into the future, humans will_

_either be accepted in this Council as the Founder offspring we really_

_are, or maybe just friends if nothing more. You may think we're_

_animals or abominations, but we're here, and we have as much_

_right to live as anyone in this room_."

William stepped back exhausted. Scully reached forward and grabbed

him. Mulder picked him up and held him. Both he and Scully had helped

him through his long speech, inserting a point here and there, but

alot of it had been his own words, spoken from his own heart, and

Mulder had never been so proud of his son as he was now. The family of

three held each other as the buzz went up around the room.

The Green-Eyes leader then got up and reported about what his race had

found on the greys' ship, information that had been collected

depicting the experiments on humans, and how they had been the ones

who had received William's distress call. Finally, the greys, who were

called the Elohim, stood up to make thier final arguments, which were

basically rote from thier first ones. William heard his father whisper

to his mother that if this were Earth, the argument that

"they were just stupid animals" wouldn't get very far. Scully reminded

him that this was NOT Earth, in case he had forgotten.

Finally, the voice spoke, **"This Council has heard the claims made in**

**all parties and will deliberate on the next course of action. The**

**Elohim are hereby confined to thier sector until final descisions are**

**in, the adama, humans, will be given to the Rilans until further**

**notice."**

A buzzer sounded and the Green-Eyes leader came to them, saying they

would return to thier quarters now. So the Green-Eyes were called

Rilans. The great hall blinked away and they once again stood in the

room with the circle on the floor. They followed the Rilan back to

thier rooms and sat in the chairs in silence.

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Dana Scully had been wondering just how long they had actually been

gone from Earth and how much longer it would be for the Council to

come to some sort of decision. And what would become of them? Would

they be sent back to Earth or kept as lab rats or specimens for some

weird zoo? And who knew how time was measured around here? Maybe by

the time any decision was reached, William would be seventy years

old. Mulder had been pacing the room, examining every corner, every

detail, as Scully and William dozed, snuggled up on a chair. If this

went badly, he had to start thinking about possible escape plans, if

any.

The door opened and Scully and William jumped up. A Green-Eyes Rilan

had come to get them for the final verdict. Trembling, William

followed his parents as they went down the hall to the hologram room.

They stepped into the circle and the Council hall appeared in front of

them again. The Elohim representatives were standing in thier circle,

and the hall was silent. Scully grasped Mulder's fingers and reached

for her son. William took both of thier hands and they stood, lifting

thier chins to face the crowd of alien beings who would decide

thier fate.

The voice boomed, "**Representatives of the Elohim, representatives of**

**the humans, this Council has considered your case carefully. The laws**

**of the Council of beings of the Founders has its laws in place for the**

**purpose of ensuring order and peace between interrelated species. It**

**has never had to apply to creatures whose origins could not be**

**confirmed as Founder-related. Our laws prohibit species tampering, but**

**only in the case of species who are confirmed Founder-bred. However,**

**the Founders themselves cherished life enough to ensure its growth in**

**many diverse forms all over the galaxy, enough to leave**

**thier unknown homeworld and travel for eons spreading their DNA**

**wherever they could. It has been made clear that pehaps this council**

**will never know the true origins of life on the planet known as Earth,**

**for it has all been tampered with, and this leaves us in a very**

**difficult position.**

**Do we honor our own laws which only include the Founder species that**

**are known, or do we take the chance for an unknown species based on**

**values the Founders themselves must have cherished? The Elohim have**

**carefully pointed out that since Founder-origin cannot be confirmed in**

**the case of humans, there is no way of proving our law against species**

**tampering applies in this case.."**

William felt his heart sinking. Scully bit back a shudder of dismay

and Mulder felt his fist clenching in anger. But the voice continued.

**"However, the juevenile human has made several interesting points. If**

**this Council was to condone this type of behavior against any species,**

**it would not be long before our laws would be meaningless. We must set**

**an example for our laws, regarding all life, for many of us can see**

**that, Founder-origins or not, This species known as human is in fact**

**sentient with a thriving civilization, and it deserves to grow, or**

**perish, by its own devices, as we all do. Furthermore, the Elohim's**

**own admittance to planning and executing three times the destruction**

**of not just the human civilization of this planet, but also an**

**unkown reptilian race and a now extent pre-human advanced race, shows**

**thier gross disregard for all life, whether they be brethern species**

**or random. It is a criminal act to commit mass genocide, and**

**furthermore indicates that the Elohim are in fact hiding the knowledge**

**that they knew full well that the primitive race the encountered on**

**this planet WERE descendants of the Founders, with or without DNA**

**evidence.**

**It has been discovered, through examination of these humans and of**

**data collected from the Elohim themselves, that the huma race has been**

**forcably tampered with to prevent them from reaching thier true**

**Founder race potential, and this is inexcusable.**

**It is the decision of this Council that the race of Elohim is to**

**depart at once from the appointed sector and that agents of this**

**Council be dispatched at once to remove and dispose of all alien**

**presence on the planet, regarding the ones known as Super Soldier and**

**all evidence of the virus to be used against the humans. The Elohim**

**will cooperate fully or face even further punishment than**

**they will now recieve. The sector containing the planet known as Earth**

**is now confiscated and within the jurisdiction of this Council, until**

**such time as when the humans either advance to thier full potential**

**and join this Council, or end up exterminating themselves, as it has**

**been known to happen to other races.**

**The species at this time is still much too primative and will be kept**

**under close observation. As for the Elohim, for thier crimes against**

**life, most likely life seeded b the Founders, they are relived from**

**the last four sectors of thier territory and forbidden to enter human**

**space ever again. They will relinquish thier seat in the science**

**committee and trade with the Tidaxians is hereby forfeit in matters of**

**gleamstone trading for a period of twelve units. The Rilans will**

**return these three humans to thier homeworld immediatly."**

The Elohim representatives were furious! _Surely you cannot be serious!_

_Such a strong punishment for minor tampering of creatures not even of_

_this council! And to prohibit trade for gleamstones? This will cut our_

_space travels by half without the ability to run half our ships!_

**"My bretheren Elohim, do you not see?"** continued the voice,** "it is**

**that attutidue that has gotten you into trouble. The true measure of a**

**race is how it treats its inferiors, and you have treated your own**

**creation with nothing more that the worse contempt possible. One more**

**misstep and you will no longer sit on this Council, be grateful your**

**race has not been rejected from this assembly entirely. Now be silent.**

**This Council stands at rest."**

William stepped forward and bowed, followed by Mulder and Scully.

_**"Thank you,"**_ he called. Mulder and Scully waved as the room once

again dissolved in front of them.

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They didn't return to thier holding room, but rather followed a Rilan

down yet another winding hall. They came to a wall and the Rilan

indicated that they should step through. Mulder turned tot he Rilan

and asked, "Is it over then? Will they leave us alone?" William

translated.

Yes, replied the Rilan, As we speak special clean up crews have been

sent to your world to remove all of the Elohim's projects and presence

there. They are confined to teritory several light years from your

world and the few parsecs surrounding your solar system have been

siezed by the Council. You will be left in peace, for now.

'Will we see any of you again?' asked William.

He thought he saw the being smile, if only in its green eyes, as it

said, Perhaps someday the Council will call your race forward. You

have much to learn and grow beyond your primative ways, but you seem

to learn much faster than anyone has ever seen before. If you manage

not to destroy yourselves, when you are ready, the Council will make

contact with your race. It has still yet to be determined if you truly

are a Founder-bred race or not, but even if you aren't,

you will be left alone. Unless of course you become a threat.

William nodded and bowed to the creature, and it bowed back. Mulder

took William's hand and Scully's, and together they stepped through

the wall, feeling the pleasant tingle and seeing the rainbows of

colors dance.

Suddenly, they landed on the ground as if they had jumped from above

about ten feet. William rolled head over heels coming to a stop next

to Scully, who had managed to twist her ankle when she landed. Mulder

sat up groaning, holding his side. They looked around and saw they

were in a desert somewhere. William looked up in time to see a craft

in the distance speeding away up into the stars. He grinned.

"Is everybody OK?" asked Mulder, pulling Scully to her feet and

supporting her weight from her injured ankle.

"Yeah I think so," she said as William got to his feet and dusted the

sand off.

"Mom, Dad, is it really over?" he asked.

"I guess we'll find out, son," said Mulder. "Come on, we have to get

your mom to a hospital or something, she might have broken her

ankle."

"I'm fine, Mulder," she said.

William and his father rolled thier eyes, and they started walking

down the hill until they reached a road. Making a descision, they

started walking. After what seemed like hours, they rounded a bend and

saw, to thier surprise, thier car on the side of the road. It was

still dark, but it seemed as if sunrise was near, because in the

growing light, they could see it was in fact thier rental

car. It was bizarre, it looked like it had simply been parked on the

side of the road. For how long? How long had they been gone?

The keys were still in the ignition and they climbed in with relief.

Mulder started the car and they drove coming into the town of Rachel,

Nevada, right as the sun came up. But even more surprising, the local

radio station announced that it was only the next morning. And as his

mother's favorite Celine Dion song came on, William couldn't help but

notice how appropriate it was.

_"Where there was dark now there's light_

_where there was pain now there's joy_

_where there was weakness, I found my strength_

_all in the eyes of a boy"_

That could be him, William realized.

_"...I see a light in the sky_

_oh, it's almost blinding me_

_I can't believe I've been touched by an angel with love_

_let the rain come down and wash away my tears_

_let it fill my soul and drown my fears_

_let it shatter the wall, for a new sun_

_A new day, has come..."_

William would have laughed at how ironic it was.

_"...I see a light in your eyes,_

_all in the eyes of a boy..."_

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Decmber 25, 2012

The entire Scully family plus a few additions were having the best

Christmas of thier life, especially following a week long of hiding

out in bomb shelters all throughout the neighborhood, waiting for the

invasion they had planned for for over a decade.

But it never came. True to thier word, the Council had waylaid the

Elohim's plan to take Earth and had removed the supersoldiers and all

traces of the greys from the planet. For several weeks, there were

reports of UFO's and dissapearances of high level officials, but it

had settled. On the actual date of December 22, 2012, the Scully

family had congregted in Roswell, New Mexico where it was supposed to

be somewhat safe. But the invasion never came. Bill Jr had been

merciless in his torment of Scully and Mulder, but they just laughed,

releived that Bill's ranting was all they had to fight. William would

probably have recurring nightmares all his life, and no one in the

world would ever know the battle they had fought to save the human

race.

Word had trickled down the grapevine of Aegis, of course, and most

people now accepted the story of the Council, since the invasion had

not come, but several others were remaining vigilant, sure that the

invasion was only postponed.

But for the family who had fought it all, they finally were able to

rest, although Mulder doubted they would ever really believe it was

all over for good. William had emailed Josh but had decided not to

tell him anything. His parents hd been right, Josh didn't need the

added worry of something that might not even happen anymore. Instead,

William talked about baseball and the new Nintendo VR game due out for

Christmas.

This year, they celebrated Chirstmas like never before. Maggie Scully

had made her best dressing, Tara and Bill Jr. had done the turkey,

Charlie and his wife Stephanie had done the pies, and Scully and

Mulder had done pretty much everything else. John Doggett and Monica

Reyes and Walter Skinner had come down to join them, as well as Jimmy

and Yves. Gibson was spending Christmas with his friend Doug, but

Jeffery Spender came from next door at his brother, Mulder's,

request. He had been especially happy to hear of the diverted alien

invasion, since it meant that all of his father's treachery, including

his own disfigurement, had all been dealt with justly.

William spent the entire time challenging his cousins to rematches on

video games and enjoying being a kid for the first time in a long

time. As the family gathered around the table for Christmas dinner,

William got the best present he had ever recieved when his father

stood up.

"Everyone, I guess now is a good time to say this," he said looking

down at Scully. "I've asked Dana about sixteen times to marry me, and

on the seventeenth try, she said yes. We're going to be married this

spring."

William jumped up and cheered and jumped into his father's arms.

Maggie had jumped up and grabbed Dana in a hug. Everyone at the table

was either cheering, applauding or hugging someone. Except for Bill

Jr., who remained in his seat scowling until Tara kicked him hard in

the shins and he clapped. From that moment on, the holiday got better

and better.

Later that night, William, who was sharing a room with his cousins and

having trouble sleeping since Matthew snored, slowly crept down the

hall to his parents' room and crawled into bed with them. Both were

awake instantly, but settled down when they saw it was William.

"Have a good Christmas?" asked Mulder. William nodded and snuggled

down next to his mother. She looked at Mulder with a smile.

"Should we tell him now?" she asked.

"Well, I guess we'll have to now that you've said something," quipped

Mulder.

"Tell me what?" asked William.

"Well," said Dana slowly, "You're going to be a big brother."

William sat straight up. "What? You're gonna have another baby?"

"Hey buddy, say it a little louder, maybe your Uncle Bill down the

hall will hear you," said Mulder quietly."And yes, your mom's going to

have a baby. We didn't think she could, but then we didn't think she

could have you." Mulder ruffled his son's hair.

"That's why we're getting married in March. It's due in August," said

Dana.

William settled back down, thinking to himself, 'Wow, Uncle Bill's

gonna be pissed. This'll be great! I hope it's another boy, I can

teach him to play baseball, and me and dad can take him to Indian

guides. That's going to be one lucky kid.'

With a smile, he settled back down drifting into sleep, where he

dreamed of his sister Emily running along the beach, of grey aliens in

little jail cells, and a sunrise over a beautiful mountain landscape,

and he and his parents and a little baby walking along the beach,

following Emily's footsteps in the sand.

THE END.


End file.
